


The Lorde RinVenka One

by navience



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Arson, F/F, Ficlet Collection, Most Ambitious Crossover In Niche WLW History, don't EVER mention lorde and rinvenka to me in the same sentence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 22,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26753473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navience/pseuds/navience
Summary: I have brainrot and this is where it goes; Rin and Venka fall in love to every single Lorde song.
Relationships: Fang Runin/Sring Venka, Fang Runin/Yin Nezha
Comments: 19
Kudos: 33





	1. psycho high

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sober II (melodrama) - serial killer au. warnings for death of minor characters, slight description of gore and alcohol/drug usage, and general murdery soulmateism. everything's pretty vague i think

The world is a hazy blur of neon lights, blue-pink-purple, a throbbing crowd of faceless people, the deafening drone of bass drowning them in a sea of sound. A perfect party scene; fun, sexual, sinister. People are dancing well past the brink of sobriety, creating one gyrating body that breaks up, reforms, breaks up. Dispersed throughout the mass, couples are intertwined, tongues tangled. Between the mood lighting, the hour, and their own blinding inebriation, nobody notices the sanguine liquid crusting on the walls, in the corner, just over there. Not until it’s too late.

Venka giggles as she and Rin push into the back alleyway, looking in the dark like two friends supporting their much, much more drunken one. It’s not until they heave their third bodily into the back dumpster and Venka is pulling Rin’s head down to hers that something about that picture looks off. 

“Think anyone saw?”

“Who cares?” Their grins both shine menacingly white.

Venka never used to be this bold. When she killed, she did it stealthily— a drop in his drink, a shot across the park. She had hawk eyes and an innocuous face; it would have been criminal not to put them to use. 

It had simply never occurred to her to test the limits, to see how much she could get away with. Her father had found out about one of them, once, dragging a boy out of her bedroom with a satisfied smirk and his blood and vomit all over her. He’d covered for her, of course, but he hadn’t been happy about it. He hadn’t even _tried_ to understand.

When she’d met Rin, they’d understood each other. They made eye contact over their body bags (Rin had this peculiar shine to her, even in the dead of night) and Venka had known then that they were two of a kind, twin flames, soulmates. Then she’d tried to kill Rin, and Rin had tried to kill her, and the bloody aftermath was excruciating. 

They’d stalked each other for months, striking over and over and yet somehow never succeeding. Venka still felt a twinge of pity for the waiter who’d drunk the cyanide meant for Rin. She didn’t think he’d deserved that, and it had been an awful mess for the restaurant. They’d tried to kill each other so often they’d given up and decided to optimize their killing of others by doing it together. 

Rin was daring, bold. Where Venka had worked from the shadows for her revenge, Rin lit firecrackers and hung heads on walls. She wanted the world to see what she’d done, to ward off the pitch and bring the flame. 

They brought out the best in each other. Or the worst. Morality is in the eye of the beholder, right?

It was the first time Venka had ever killed in such a public place. A little embarrassing, even, since she didn’t know how often Rin had done it. Still, the knife is in his back now, and the body is in the dumpster, and sweet, sweet Rin is kissing her up against the wall. 

“Whoa, sorry, sorry,” slurs some innocent bystander, stumbling out of the same door they had. They break apart, breathing heavily, the balmy night air brushing their skin. “Have good, have fun, uh, _lay-dees_.” 

They wait for the fool to leave, and once they do, Venka walks back to the dumpster. Rin comes up behind her, sliding her hands over her hips, skimming her waist, up her sides before tracing her figure all the way back down. 

“We should probably get out of here, huh?”

“For sure,” Venka replies, stretching up on her toes to douse the victim in clear liquid. “Match, babe?”

They don’t stay to hear the screams, to smell the smoke; they run, hand in monstrous hand.


	2. roll in every summer like it's shameful to be under

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no better- road trip au. no warnings for this one :)

“Please, no more Taylor Swift, I’m begging you,” Kitay rolls down the radio dial.

“Driver picks the music and the shotgun shuts his pie hole!” Nezha argues, flicking the dial back up.

“You did not just quote  _ Supernatural _ to us,” Rin moans, adjusting herself in Venka’s lap. “What is wrong with you?”

“I’m putting my foot down. We’ve heard WAP five times today and you,” he gestures violently in Kitay’s direction, “had no problem with that but when I want to add  _ Folklore  _ to the mix it’s too repetitive?”

“You’ve played it already!”   


“I’ve played it once during this entire trip!”

“Boys, boys, calm down,” Venka says, lazily carding her fingers through Rin’s hair. “What if we just—”

“No more Death Grips!” Everyone choruses.

“Gosh, you don’t have to be so aggressive about it,” Venka presses back into her seat, sulking.

“It gives me a headache.” Nezha says.

“You’re a pussy. What’s everyone else’s excuse?” He sticks out his tongue at her in the rearview mirror and she reciprocates.

“Aw, babe, don’t be mad,” Rin reaches up to pat her face clumsily. “Your music just sounds the way anxiety feels.” Venka bites one of Rin’s fingers, prompting a low snort and soft laughter from both girls. “C’mon, just turn on Lorde. We can all agree on that, right?”

They can, and the next hour or so passes in peace. Kitay falls asleep, his head pressed against the window and the breath from his open mouth fogging the glass. Nezha squints as the sun settles directly below his visor, trying to rub away eight hours straight of driving exhaustion.

“I’m hungry,” Rin announces eventually. “Can we stop?”

“Please,” Nezha says fervently. 

“Yeah, I need to pee,” Venka adds. “Kitay?” Kitay makes a snuffling noise and tries to hide in his hands. “Hey, wake up, fucker.” She holds out her already-cold hand in front of the air-con and then presses it to the part of his neck exposed by his head rest, smirking when he jumps and shrieks. 

“Fuck-shit-damn!”

“Watch your language, dude,” Nezha says. “Can you find us a place to eat?” Kitay continues to curse them lowly under his breath as he scrolls through his phone. 

“There’s a curry place nearby?” 

“No, I got food poisoning from that when I was eleven,” Venka says. 

“How about this place? The Fresh Fig?” They pass the phone around, but when it lands back in Kitay’s hands he shudders. “Never mind. Four dollar signs. Okay, there’s a burger place a mile away.”

“I’m not picky, like, at all, but I might be reaching my limit on fast food,” Rin says, and everyone else nods.

“Yeah, me too,” Kitay sighs. “Oh, jackpot!”

-

They stop in the parking lot of a dingy restaurant with a sign that proclaims the spiciest food around. Everyone clambers out of the car, eagerly stretching their arms above their head and rolling out their numb muscles. The popping noise Nezha’s neck makes is especially impressive. 

The inside of the joint is as dingy as the outside, but Kitay reports that the advertising doesn’t disappoint. The rest of them, who are slightly more sane, order their food mild, and they still end up ordering extra rice to soothe their tingling palates. 

“Mm, that was good,” Venka sighs as they walk back to the car and happily buckle themselves in. “Think I might pass out now. Unless you want someone else to drive, Nezha?”

“Hell, no,” Nezha snaps. “I’ll fall asleep on the road before I let one of you drive again.”

“We’re not that bad.”   


“Rin, you don’t even have your license, which I didn’t find out until we were practically causing a pile-up on the freeway. You are the worst example by far.”

“Just means we get to sleep earlier,” Rin shrugs, and lays herself in her designated spot on Venka’s lap. “Oi. Head pats.” Venka obliges, and they both drift off quickly, Kitay following soon after. Nezha turns on  _ Folklore _ .

“Hey, uggos, time to get out. We’re at the hotel.” Nezha honks the horn, effectively waking everyone but Rin, who was already up and impatient to get out of the cramped car.

“You suck, dude.”

“My mouth tastes like fucking shit,” Venka complains. 

“Here. Gum,” Rin says. Venka bends over her and kisses her, Spider-Man style, Rin’s hands quickly finding purchase in her hair.

“Stop  _ fornicating _ back there, you freaks,” Kitay says. “I can see you in the mirror.”

“Cranky because you’re single?” Regardless, they both sit up. Venka smacks her lips obnoxiously, drawing attention to the gum Rin put in her mouth. Nezha and Kitay make simultaneous gagging gestures.

“I am happy because I’m single, thanks. However, I am cranky, and I’m trapped up here with Mister  _ My Tears Ricochet _ , which is not helping anything.”

“You can play your weird EDM tomorrow if you drive,” Rin soothes.

“It’s not weird,” Kitay grumbles. Venka kisses Rin again, then peppers pecks all over her face. 

“Gods, Venka,” she says, but there’s no real heat in the words and she doesn’t push her away. 

“You’re not even listening to me,” Kitay grumbles. Rin pushes Venka away.

“We are!” He twists around to shoot her a disbelieving look.

“We are not. Hey, maybe you and Nezha could be a thing,” Venka suggests, and they all burst out laughing. The moonlight spills over them, lining them in silver. Nezha’s shaggy hair and Rin’s short locks and Venka’s gleaming teeth and Kitay’s lanky body all freeze, captured in a hopeful, perfect moment in time.


	3. a different kind of buzz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> royals- hollywood starlet au. tw for a lot of drug usage, arson, implied child abuse, implied suicide, and generally self-destructive behavior.

“Again, Ms. Sring?” her latest manager says, sighing as they observe the wreckage of the hotel room. Venka follows their line of sight, a grin splitting her face when she sees what she’s done. Her smile is dizzying, bright and white and sharp, described as deadly by the news, forever hunted by and rarely given to the paparazzi. The lamps are in pieces on the floor, the wardrobe has been dismantled and the expensive clothing contained within it trampled, the walls torn open in places to reveal the bones of the building.

“I think it’s a kind of art,” Venka says, holding out her arms and spinning in a slow circle in the center of her destruction. Her pink, miraculously clean silken robe puffs out and swirls around her as she does. From an eagle’s-eye view, she is the immaculate, untouched eye of the hurricane. From a closer view, her hands are scarred and bloodied at the knuckles and the palms.

“What it _is_ is fodder for the gossip rags,” her manager says shortly. Venka sniffs.

“They haven’t found out yet, have they? I’ll pay for it.”

“Fine, as long as you keep it private.”

“Nothing’s private,” she says bitterly, and sweeps grandly out of the room. All the light leaves with her. 

-

She knows Fang Runin, of course. An up-and-coming talent, a real rags-to-riches story. She hates her on principle.

She hates her until she meets her, in the bathroom of some awards ball.

“You’re up soon, you know.” 

Venka scoffs, straightening from her position bent over the sink and turning to face Rin.

“I know.” 

“I’m Fang Runin. Rin. You have a little, uh,” the other woman gestures to her own nose, which is round and kind of fascinating, Venka thinks.

“Oh, yes,” she says, turning to the mirror and rubbing away the white powder clinging to her pale skin. “So, you’re the brat?”

It’s a rhetorical question, because everyone knows who Rin is these days. A revolutionary, the papers call her. An entirely new block, when people like Venka used to be revered as a chip off the old block. A brat, the industry oldies call her. Venka’s not obscure, not yet. She’s not sure she’s ready to become insignificant, but she’s certainly not relishing her fame either. 

“If you mean I wasn’t born into this shitty life, you’re right,” Rin shrugs. “But it’s all I know, same as you.” Venka can’t tell if she’s genuinely caught by Rin’s words or if it’s because she can feel the high settling in, hazy euphoria draping over her like a favorite shawl and putting her in a more indulgent mood.

“Would you like some?” She offers a compact to the other woman, little straw and all. 

“Got my own,” Rin’s voice is so different from the cultivated Trans-Atlantic accents Venka and all her compatriots have been trained with, pitching lower than she’s used to. As she racks up, Rin smiles, and although it’s not pretty, Venka’s transfixed.

Sring Venka does not appear to accept any awards that night. The poor thing had a headache.

-

“What do you think happens to us after we die?” Venka asks Rin one day. They’re in Paris, shooting a film together for once and testing how often they can visit each other’s trailers before their managers come running.

“Who cares?” Rin answers. “It can’t be too bad. Lots of people do it.”

“They can’t help it, you nosebleed.”

“Some of them can,” Rin says, her face serious and her eyes far away.

“Like Altan?” Venka asks softly, knowing how touchy Rin is about her belated mentor. Rin stiffens, untangling her legs from Venka’s and taking a long drag from her fancy French pipe. 

“Hey, fuck this. Let’s go on an adventure. We’re in the city of love, lights, oh,” Rin drops the pipe and grabs her hand. “ _Lights_. Let’s rent a scooter.”

“ _Allô? Est-ce le_ , um,” Venka looks at Rin, who shrugs and flicks her fingers at her. “ _Les_ fire-fighters? Yes, there’s a fire.” She recounts the set address. “Thank you.” The phone clicks down on its receiver.

They leave the trailer smoldering behind them.

-

There’s a map studded full of push pins hanging above Venka’s enormous, old brass bed. Close to nobody is allowed in there, but if asked, Venka could explain all of them.

_What’s this one?_

“Rin and I took a trip and went camping there for a week. Well, it was supposed to be a week. I hated it, I really did, and we rented a cottage in the closest town for the rest of our vacation.”

_And this one?_

“Oh, I was in California shooting for _Inkspot_ , and Rin was in Arizona for that Western she did, and one day we played hooky to go to Vegas. We were quite inebriated, and one thing led to another, and we got married there. I didn’t think conniptions were real until we got back and my manager went into one.”

_What about this?_

“That one… I’m sorry, darling, it’s personal.”

-

Rin likes watching Venka while she sleeps. Rather, she has far worse insomnia than the other woman, and it’s so peaceful to see Venka in repose that it’s almost refreshing in itself. They’re young yet, and wrinkles haven’t dared to settle on the starlet’s face. She’s rarely visibly upset when she’s not throwing things or screaming obscenities, but when she’s conscious Rin can see the rage Venka carries down her toes. The anger Rin’s been trying to suppress for the sake of herself and her career— Venka voices it loudly whenever she wants, damn the consequences. She can pay off whatever damages she causes, anyway. 

Venka’s Hollywood royalty, the product of what’s practically an arranged marriage. Her father was a singer and now he’s a producer, and her mother was a silent film star. Venka’s looks are class, like she was made to walk the red carpet, a natural society queen. Her singing, too, has boosted her since she was a child; what was once a pretty, little girl’s voice has evolved with age and heavy smoking to be a low, warm, almost raspy tone that sends the records flying off the shelves.

Rin is a child star too, exploited by her foster family until she broke free at sixteen in a court case that earned many reporters a pretty penny. She kept acting because she didn’t know what else to do, and she’d learned to love it by then anyway. Her big break as an adult was steeped in scandal and the rest of her career so far has followed the same path. She’s never shied away from the spotlight— drama penetrates her life inside and out. Without drama, Rin feels lost and lonely and abandoned. 

She suspects Venka’s a little of the same, her pretty, passionate girl. She likes watching her sleep because it’s the only time Venka looks at peace. Venka when she’s high is different, simultaneously manically active and mentally distant, and Rin’s similarly too far away to compare her lover like that to her lover at rest. When they’re in public, Venka only ever smiles because there’s chemicals pulsing through her blood and soothing her nerves. When they’re in private, Venka smiles in her sleep, and tells Rin she was dreaming of her. Rin gets her own kind of high from that, stronger but shorter than anything else she’s tried.

-

“Ms. Sring?” She’s decked out in jewel tones, her black hair wrapped up elegantly and her dramatic makeup making the shadows beneath her eyes look false, decorative. 

“I’m not taking questions right now,” she says, brushing past them with her nose high in the air. 

“Ms. Sring, if I could only have a moment of your time,” the journalist begs. “I just wanted to—”

“To  _ what _ ,” Venka says, and there’s desperate, furious misery welling in her doelike eyes. “To invade my privacy so that I have nothing left that is my own? To hound me until I cannot sleep for hearing the shuttering of cameras? To make me into a doll for the public, a pretty plaything with malleable emotions made for the big screen?”

The journalist steps back. Venka’s face is flushed red with fury; no longer a Hollywood darling but some vengeful Medusa, her hair curling around her face as she sways in her temper. 

“Here is your scoop. I have a wife— not a husband, a wife, who I love and I cherish and I will be with until the end of my short life, because there is no one that fame has not hollowed out and filled with smoke, and when I go home to her today we will laugh about this interview because you, and your stupid herd of sheepish wolves, mean nothing to us, not anymore.” She sags, suddenly, looking much older than her years, bowed by the weight of her truth. Still, a comforting hand comes to the back of her neck, and she recognizes the heat for Rin, who draws herself to her full height and glares at the cowed journalist.

“Away, you three-inch fool,” Rin says, in her best Sinegardian accent, and the reporter leaves, and Venka looks at her with wounded eyes, and they hold very very still for one long, suspended moment.

Then they laugh, raucously, indelicately. They sink to the floor amidst layers of taffeta and bold red lip, clinging to each other and laughing until their mirth turns into bloody tears. 

-

They wreck things together in the raging ruination of their relationship. They each stoke the other’s fires up, up, up, taking whatever destructive power they held individually before and doubling it. They race expensive cars until they crash, set fires until they fizzle out, drink until they can’t see straight. 

It’s nighttime in Hong Kong, and Venka’s lying on the floor of her penthouse looking up at the night sky. Rin had gotten a firecracker from one of the tech workers she was such good friends with, and they’d lit it in the middle of the room before retreating to the balcony to smoke. The resulting explosion was more than satisfying, and they were on the highest level so they could see straight to the stars. 

Venka sits up, hugging her knees close to her chest. She catches sight of herself in the shards of a cracked mirror. There are vicious purple circles beneath her eyes, her black shift spotted and torn. Her pupils swallow her irises completely, her already pale skin powdered with plaster, her hair plaited neatly, and she thinks vaguely that she looks like a doll.

“Rin, love?” Rin sits up, red cracking across the whites of her eyes. “Do you have scissors?”

Reflected in the slivers of glass, layers of black hair shorn short fall softly to the ground.


	4. on each other's team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> team- they get married in this one! sort of. 100% humor and fluff. warning for disgusting, cheesy, stupid, tooth-rotting sweetness. also, this isn't particularly relevant, but Rin is in pro football and Venka is a lawyer. au where they are modern, well-adjusted adults who got the therapy they needed. Kitay has a caffeine addiction after this if he didn't already though

“Wake up, freckle-face. We have business.”   


“How the fuck did you get into my apartment?” Kitay asks blearily. “And what time is it?”

“Six—” Venka checks her shiny, high-tech watch. “Oh seven. You gave Rin a key, and by extension, you gave me a key.”

“That’s not how it works. Also, why?” Kitay moans and yanks his comforter up over his head. Venka _could_ read the room; instead, she chooses to bulldoze over every signal he’s giving her that he is not in the mood to converse.

“I was going for my morning jog, and usually I go with Rin,” she rambles. Kitay wonders how angry his best friend would be if he stabbed her girlfriend. “—She rolled her ankle yesterday and we’re waiting to see if it’s fractured. She’s so stubborn, she’d run herself into the ground and never see a medical professional if she could. She hates the doctor, you know? Anyway, I was leaving, and she rolled over and asked me to stay even though she was still asleep, and then when I was running I was thinking. And I’ve known since the first time I saw her laugh, you know the one, where she starts crying a little from it, it’s adorable, but I just... You were the closest person I knew, so I ran here. Kitay, I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”

Kitay peeks out from under the blanket.

After he finally banishes the frantic lesbian from his bedroom so he can dress and splash some cold water on his face because  _ holy shit _ , he walks out in a black turtleneck and chinos to find Venka buzzing around his kitchen.

“Do you really need coffee right now?” He asks, well aware of the potential consequences of questioning her.

“If I don’t do something with my hands I will throw up and then possibly cry, and if I do either of those things in your kitchen I will be forced to commit ritual suicide. If I do that, I can’t marry Rin. Thus, coffee.”

“Venka?”

“Hm?” She looks up from his utensils drawer, where she seems to be reorganizing his silverware in alphabetical order.  _ Fork, knife, spoon, spork. _

“Sit down and take a— no, take several deep breaths before I call Rin and throw you out.” She huffs, but complies. They sit in silence, excluding Venka’s impatient foot tapping and clearly ineffective, yet loud, breathing exercises, until the coffee is ready. Kitay pours himself a mug, pointedly not offering one to Venka, and takes a bracing gulp before plunging in.

“Are you sure?”

“More than I’ve ever been about anything in my entire life,” Venka says, boring her eyes into his. “I know I have my own… issues, and, frankly, so does she, but we’re essentially married already. We’ve been living together for years and dating longer. Nobody knows me better. Fuck, Kitay, if it’s not her, it’s nobody.” Kitay smiles a little despite his consternation at the hour.

“That’s good. Oh, uh, what are you thinking you’re gonna do about it?” He says, almost seeming nervous.

“I wanted to take her camping for a weekend.” Despite her flat, no-nonsense tone, Venka plays with her fingertips, something hopeful in her eyes. She wants his approval desperately, because if anyone knows Rin better than she, it’s Kitay. 

“That sounds great,” he says weakly. “You’d just want to time it right.” She cocks her head.

“What do you mean?” 

Kitay thinks back to just about a week ago, when he’d been coming back from what had felt like an impossibly long day reading through reports. 

Normally he didn’t mind his job— liked it, even, but that day had been plain exhausting. He thanks the gods it was over as he unlocks his door, drops his briefcase, flicks on the lights, and lets out a shrill scream.

“Shit, dude, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Rin says, uncrossing her legs from where she's slouched on his couch. 

“Gave  _ you _ a heart attack?” He hisses. “What are you doing in my apartment?” Wordlessly, Rin reaches into her hoodie pocket and pulls out a tiny box.

“The fuck is that?” He squints. Rin sighs and flicksit open to reveal a shiny, perfect,  _ huge _ rock attached to a wedding band. “Holy— what?”

She nods, closing the box and putting it back in her pocket. Kitay delves his hands into his hair, overcome with shock. Two surprises in the last two minutes makes for one fried nerd.

“What do you think?” Kitay is still gaping at her, unable to form words. She seems to interpret his silence as disapproval, which sends her into a nervous spiral. “Oh, gods, you think I’m insane. This was a terrible idea and I impulse dropped half a mil on a ring. Gods, I am insane. She’s gonna break up with me because I impulse bought a wedding ring.”

“Half a million dollars? You hate paying more than a hundred for a month of groceries,” Kitay wheezes. He can’t resist adding, “Also, it’s an engagement ring.”

“Sure. But it’s Venka,” she offers softly, looking up at him through her lashes. “She’s worth it.”

The sincerity in her voice overrides every question Kitay has for her. This is the most important thing, not the price, not the surprise.

“Shit, Rin. You’re gonna get married.” His face splits into a wide grin and he throws his arms around her. “You’re getting married!”

“She hasn’t said yes,” Rin says, burying her face into his shoulder, her tense muscles relaxing at his show of support.

“She will.”

“You think? I bought it before I even had a real plan.”

“Of course she’ll say yes, dumbass. But I do think you should return the ring. Downsize a little.”

To Venka, a week later, he asks:

“Camping?”

“Yeah. Like, Rin likes that stuff, you know? It brings her closer to nature or the universe or whatever. I feel bad because I’m not a fan, at all, but she likes, uh, fires. Campfires. Bonfires. Setting… our… kitchen on fire.” She trails off, aware that she’s drifting. “Is it not big enough?”

Kitay’s brain cells are whirring fast enough to generate a light breeze.

“Maybe a little bit more? Like, say, a cabin in the mountains. Still camp-y vibes, and she can use the  _ fire _ place, and you don’t have to sleep on the ground.” 

Venka nods.

“You’re right, surprisingly. It’s a little symbolic, yeah?” Kitay nods for the sake of agreement.   
  
“Shit, it’s almost seven. I have to go.” She stands and stretches, looking rather modelesque in her brand name sports bra and leggings. “Um, thanks, I guess. It means a lot that you’d help me.”

Kitay knows how difficult it was for her to say, so he just waves at her as she disappears out his door before going back to bed with a groan.

-

“Hey, baby,” Venka draws out her vowels as she strips off her sweaty running clothes and changes expediently. Rin is still laid up, her foot propped up on a pillow as she watches game tapes and jots down the occasional note. “How’s it going?”

“Not bad. How was your run?”

“The usual. Can’t wait for you to be able to come with me again.” Venka flops into bed next to her girlfriend, opening her laptop. “Oh, um, I know you’re immobile right now, and I know how much you hate taking time off,” Venka starts. “But—”

“Do you want to take a vacation?” Rin sits up straighter, everything about her perking up. Even if she hadn’t been about to suggest the same thing, Venka wouldn’t have said no for the world.

“Have you been talking to Kitay?” She says, squinting suspiciously.

“Me?” Rin laughs nervously. “Kitay? Why would I do that? Um, talk to him about our trip? Our hypothetical trip? Are  _ you  _ talking to Kitay?”

“Why would I talk to Kitay? You’re his best friend!” Venka’s voice reaches a hysterical shrill. “I mean, um,” she clears her throat and drops a few octaves. “No. I have not been talking to Kitay.”

They both settle, mollified that their secret is safe.

-

A few months later, and Kitay is starting to wonder if his best friend, the former head of class, and her girlfriend, a hotshot lawyer, came by their success through a fluke. They’d both started to visit him separately on occasion to ask for advice, and then more and more as the date of their vacation came closer. He suspects that he’s being used as a punching bag for their nerves.

“I know we’ve talked about marriage,” Rin says on one occasion. “But what if she was lying? I don’t want to pressure her into something she’s not ready for.” Kitay pinches his nose and recalls having the same conversation with Venka two days ago. 

“I can promise you, Rin, she will say yes because she loves you and she wants to marry you. If you even think about the idea of her saying no again, I will have an aneurysm and then you will have nobody to give you advice you don’t pay attention to.”

“I paid attention to your advice about the ring,” Rin sulks. It’s true. She’d returned the monstrosity and chosen one that Kitay quite approved of, with considerably more thought and deliberation. It’s still ridiculously expensive, in her opinion, because it’s a D color diamond in a solitaire setting, but it’s pretty and she can afford it, so she bought it.  _ She deserves the best _ , she’d told the salesman.

Meanwhile, Nezha stands by, baffled, as Venka thrusts a cluster ring with a big diamond and little rubies at him.

“Yes? No? Yes? Make a decision,” she huffs. 

“We’ve been here forever,” he replies. “You make a decision.”

“Okay,” she takes a deep breath. “I think it’s this one. It has to be this one.”

“It’s very her,” he agrees.

“Oh, but she doesn’t like expensive things. What if she’s insulted?”   


“She’ll like it,” Nezha rolls his eyes. “And if she doesn’t, you can exchange it, can’t you?”

She slugs him on principle, then buries her face in his chest and clings to him to convey the thanks she cannot say.

-

The mountain cabin they rent is quaint. Rin thinks cabin is a misnomer, with its hot tub and tall ceilings and king bed, but she’s far from complaining. They spend a peaceful week together cuddling, hiking, and generally enjoying each other in solitude. On the second to last night, they sit in front of the fireplace, Rin stroking Venka’s short hair. 

“Do you want more water?” Venka asks. “I’m thirsty.”

“Yeah, I know, babe. What have we been doing for a week?” Venka rolls her eyes at the joke. Rin smiles wide, puts both her hands on each side of Venka’s face to peck her on her wrinkled forehead. “Kidding. I’m good, thank you.” Venka walks into the kitchen and splashes a little of the water on her face, pinching herself and pulling out the box she’d shoved in the back of the pantry when they first arrived. 

She walks back to the living room slowly, forcing herself from running in to throw herself on her girlfriend so she doesn’t hurl her rehearsed speech out the window.

When she walks in and sees Rin kneeling, waiting for her, firelight pooling in her hair and dripping over the box she’s holding out, she lets out a shriek and drops her own box. Before Rin can blink, Venka’s wrapped around her, catlike, her face buried in her neck and her arms embracing her tightly. Rin’s own hands are splayed over Venka’s back, holding her close as she falls back to sit cross-legged on the floor. 

“I didn’t even get to ask,” Rin teases, pressing a kiss to the side of Venka’s head. “Is that a yes?”

“You dumbass,” Venka says in Rin’s ear. “Here.” She untangles herself and finds the discarded box a few feet away on the floor. This time, she kneels, displaying the ring.

“Fang Runin, love of my life, holder of my heart, will you marry me?”

“You bitch,” Rin tugs her back to her. “I love you more than anything in the world.”

-

Rin’s eye twitches. 

“Does it matter that there’s a spot on my suit?”

“It’s white,” her maid of honor says. “It’ll show.”

“It’s the size of a pencil eraser!”

“Just give it five minutes.”

“I absolutely cannot wait five minutes,” Rin snaps. “My wife is waiting for me.” Determinedly, she starts marching, dragging Jiang (in lieu of a former guardian) with her. The rest of the wedding party is spurred into action. As she waits, Rin is hyperaware of her surroundings. Altan and Chaghan, snickering together as they walk up the aisle and out of her line of sight. Kitay and Nezha, stuck together by virtue of being Best Men. Kesegi giving her a thumbs up from his seat up front. Finally, it’s her turn. Jiang offers her his arm and a final puff of his cigar, which she declines. 

At first, she is, absurdly, a little afraid that she’ll trip, or that the spot really does show. Her breath stops when she rounds a final corner on the path, and a smudge of white comes into view. Her vision tunnels. The world shifts on its axis. All the little things disappear in favor of  _ this _ . This is the most important thing. Venka smiles at her softly, her eyes half closed and her grip on her bouquet tight so Rin knows she’s holding back tears. There are flowers falling over her, knocking against her face and her own suit and drifting to settle around her feet. This is exactly where she is meant to be. 


	5. pretty girls (don't know the things that i know)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> magnets- summer fling. no warnings except very very slight implications of venka being Traumatized and mild drinking. the next five oneshots from here are nothing but pain

It was a mistake.

Rin had known it was a mistake, even as she’d cannonballed straight into disaster. She wasn’t sure if it was worse that she had walked in, eyes wide open, torch lit before her, and still believed she could escape unscathed. Still, she’d done it; still, she didn’t regret it. There had been warning signs and red flags galore:  _ stop, turn around, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not pass go _ . Red had always been her favorite color.

Venka had been wearing red when she’d met her; red all over, actually. A red crop top, red long socks, and red smeared over her knees. 

“You okay?” Rin asked her, extending a hand. The girl had taken it, pulling herself up and clinging tighter when she’d wobbled on her roller skates. 

“I am now.” Rin had flushed upon hearing the intonation of now, wondering if this girl had just fallen out of the sky as a gift from the gods. Girls who looked like that were never gay, she’d thought. She knew the truth now. Girls who looked like that never made it through life undamaged.

Her name was Venka, and she was passing through town for the summer, and did she know how to get back to the resort? 

For her, Rin had ignored three cardinal rules of life.

_ The first, never date tourists.  _

The day after she’d led her back to the hotel, which had turned into a full-blown tour of town, Rin had been at work. It was a slow day, hot and sluggish, and the trickle of customers into the ice cream shop stayed steady. She’d been leaning on the counter, her face buried in her arms, when a light giggle had sounded just above her.

“Bad time?” Rin’s head snapped up, and her lips had parted as she stared at Venka with wide eyes. “Hello, anybody in there?” Venka waved a manicured hand in front of her. 

“Yes! Sorry! What can I get for you?”

“I’ll take a double of cherry sorbet. What do you want?” Only then did Rin notice another girl, standing slightly behind Venka. 

Rin had served them in a haze, fumbling with the scooper but not even present enough to care.

_ The second, don’t dance past the point of no return. _

The next week passes without incident. She chastises herself for it, but Rin can’t get the girl out of her head, wondering if she’s run back home with her money and her friends. 

She can’t stop the smile that lights up her face when Venka waltzes back into the shop with all the grace of a hurricane, and she can’t stop it from widening when she notices that she came alone this time.

Rin tried, halfheartedly, to stop it. She could see it, see Venka blowing in and out of her life as she pleased, going with the wind. She’d said no, the first day, and the second too, congratulated herself as she lay in bed thinking about the girl with the sharp eyes and easy smile. Still, Venka comes in, day after day, and Rin starts to feel like she’s being wooed. 

It becomes routine— Venka brings her a single red rose in the morning, Rin gives her a double scoop of cherry sorbet, and Rin pretends she can’t feel Venka’s calculating gaze on her while she serves other customers. Naturally, this means that when Rin finally breaks, it’s outside of their comfortable, domestic zone.

It’s her off day, and she’s sitting at the bar with Altan, another local, and his husband, Chaghan. They don’t talk much, their bond mostly made by virtue of proximity, and Chaghan doesn’t like Rin much anyway because she’d had the biggest puppy crush on Altan since they’d met (although he was determinedly oblivious, and treated her more like a little sister than anything). So Chaghan is attached to Altan’s face, and for once, Rin doesn’t even feel a twinge of jealousy because she’s thinking about red lips and scraped knees. 

“Well, hello, Runin,” Venka beckons at the person sitting beside Rin that’s not her friends, and they move without complaint so she can slide into the seat. Rin is just a little bit buzzed, preferring to get high over drunk, and feeling worn down already, so she agrees to dance, and agreeing to dance with Venka is agreeing to everything Venka can give.

They dance, in the middle of the floor, moving like they share one mind in two bodies, and when their aching feet can’t take much more and their drinking limit is close to being reached, Venka grips Rin’s wrist and leads her flying out the door to her car. That’s the line, the one Rin shouldn’t have crossed, but she’s tired of holding herself in, holding back, so she takes them to the spot where all the locals take their summer flings and she wraps her arm around Venka’s slim shoulders and she teaches her what to see in the sky.

Venka tells her secrets, and Rin doesn’t have that many but she wants to share so she can see the gratified gleam in Venka’s big black eyes at the thought that someone trusts her. Venka cries, just before dawn every time, because she’s an angry crier and there’s a pool of cracked glass sitting in her ribcage always stabbing at her heart. Venka kisses her, to sand down the sharp edges and to kiss a beautiful girl in a liminal space.

_ The third, don’t catch feelings _ .

It had been fun. A way to pass the time between work and school and school and work, Rin had convinced herself. She knew Venka would leave, abstractly, but summer feels like forever until it feels all too short. Summer hadn’t even had the decency to wave goodbye, and Rin was freezing cold and filled with ice inside out.

So now, she sits on the beach in the middle of the night, water lapping at her ankles, drained and bitter. She’s sure she’ll be alright tomorrow, but tonight she wants to grieve a little piece of her heart.

The water is dark and there’s less than a sliver of moon to help her see. Sand crusted on her face, her skin stinging from the wind, Rin walks away, the saltwater washing away Venka’s sweet taste on her lips.

She didn’t even know her last name.


	6. lovers' spit left on repeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ribs- not quite an au, but also definitely not canon compliant. rin dies. HEAVY the dragon rebublic spoilers!!!

Dying hurt like a bitch.

That’s what comes of burning, from the inside out, her grip on the fire slipping and slipping and now it’s out of her hands, and she feels, maybe, just a little relieved. 

“Out of my hands,” she grunts, wiping futilely at her forehead, feeling herself soak her sleeve and her clothes with her sweat. She knows she’s dying, now, wisps of steam curling off her skin, her heart beating frantically like it can escape the flames. 

“What?” And there’s Venka, standing in front of her, the gaping holes in her skull— no, her eyes, her bottomless black eyes that Rin loves, loved, so much, wide with alarm. She drops her bow, and Rin watches it bounce as Venka runs toward her. 

_ Venka, running in a field, flowers in her hair. There had been a time when she didn’t flinch at a human hand _ .  _ Rin lifts her, swings her around. Venka lands gracefully, because she's the kind of person who always falls on her feet. She looks up at Rin, all thick lashes and carefree eyes, and the sun-baked scent of flowers reaches Rin's nose. _

“I died with,” she coughs, and the pain is horrible, worse than any burn she’d given herself studying. “With dignity?” She hadn’t meant to turn it into a question. 

“You don’t have to die, can’t you control it? Damn it, you stupid fucking shaman, what are you good for if you can’t keep yourself alive?” Venka sounds  _ furious _ , and Rin takes satisfaction in that. 

_ Their first fight— Venka throws some pots, and Rin screams like she hates her, but they sweep up the shards and they learn how to apologize together. Healthy. Healthy. Healthy. They could’ve done it, a hundred years ago. They could’ve been human and weak and better than they were today. _

“No, I think it’s—” another hacking cough. “It’s my time. Can’t control the gods, right?” There’s a little humor in her voice, oh, how she wants to see Venka smile one last time, and there’s a high, reedy flatline ringing in her ears, and she twists, wondering if Kitay is nearby. Kitay, Kitay,  _ Kitay _ , anchor me, her soul screams as it tears. 

“Nezha?” She manages.

“No,” and that’s all Venka can seem to say for a minute. Cool water falls on Rin’s skin, droplets too small to feel anything but the weight behind them. “Who are you? The Fang Runin I know would never give up like this, don’t stop fighting, wake up!” There’s a stinging pain across her face, and Venka’s palm is red. “What happened to you? To the last Speerly, to my shaman?”

That’s when Rin knows she can’t run away, she won’t. She clenches her jaw, sits up, staring out at the battlefield. There are fires raging outside herself, fires she set, corpses surrounding her, people she had killed. Gods, she had killed so many people. Was she feeling all of them, their hands on her, clawing beneath her skin to get at her soul?

“They’re all gone. Nezha, Kitay,” she says, trying to lift her hand and touch Venka’s face. Her skin hovers centimeters away, afraid to burn her. Venka threads her fingers through Rin’s and holds it to her cheek, unflinching. They hadn’t touched, maybe ever. Rin wracks her memory and comes up with false memories sifting through her melting hands. She mouths  _ Altan _ , but his name sticks in her mouth. She lists off the Cike, needlessly, stumbling again when she reaches his name. 

“People you loved?”

“People I killed. And now I’ve died like I lived,” she smiles without humor, her eyes already flat and dead.

“No time for regret, now,” Venka says. “You were a god.” The gods are monsters, they both know. Power is terrible, and great. 

There’s snow in her vision, turning Venka’s hair grey, white, black, half of her face blurring and pixellating before coming back and scratching altogether too sharp lines in Rin’s vision. 

_ Venka, her smooth skin wrinkled, her hair growing in short and wispy for different reasons. Rin, pockmarked, no longer a god, just a human. Old, together, sitting on the porch, doing whatever shit old people did. Smoking pipes, maybe. Old, and happy, and well-worn. This world, Rin thinks, fits much better than her own. Maybe, when she lets go, she'll find her way there someday.  _

“Rin, Rin, not like this, wait,” Venka is hitting her, or maybe caressing her face— Rin is floating, just above her own body, tethered only by a great weight pressing down on her chest.

She falls asleep in Venka’s arms.


	7. our rules / our dreams / we’re blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> homemade dynamite- zombie apocalypse au! tws for major character deaths, a very tiny little bit of gore, and slight tdr spoilers.

There’s a blurry photograph of them, all grimy smiles and layers of thick clothing and hair they had hacked off rather than leave limp and greasy.

Kitay had taken it, back when he was still alive, endlessly entertaining them as he pieced together garbage and made it work like magic. After Venka had shot him— Rin hadn’t been able to do it, even though her body count inched higher and higher every day, Rin had taken to keeping the photos he’d taken carefully preserved under her shirt, next to her heart. There’s the whole Cike there, alive and smiling and not blown to bits because nobody was trustworthy, not now. Nezha had left a long time ago, but there’s pictures of him there, too, pretty even though he’s not doing anything special, even after he’d been clawed half to death and they’d almost had to put him down for fear he’d turn into one of _them_.

The zombie plague had shown up halfway through their third year at Sinegard, and now all their classmates and teachers and friends were dead or had to be killed, and thousands of miles away by now anyway. Nezha had gotten a school bus somehow, after that first horrible swarm had overtaken their school, and that bus had made it all the way here, to a little town yet untouched by the undead. 

Venka had almost left, after Nezha did. She had wanted to, desperately, to follow her best friend wherever he was going (not into more danger, but certainly not back to safety. Nowhere was safe). It was the first time she hadn’t followed him, it seemed to her, a state of being so new it made her shaky and disoriented like a baby deer. Well, baby deer were stupid and got eaten first, so she had forced herself to forget Nezha and straighten her steel spine. She and Rin were the only ones left, all they had in the world.

Rin hadn’t been able to do the same as Venka, or maybe Venka hadn’t been able to hold on like Rin could. She catches Rin looking at the photographs, late at night, when their campfire’s close to burnt out and it’s Venka’s turn to keep watch. 

“Why are you still holding on to them?” It comes out more harshly than she meant it to. 

“How did you let them go?”

“They left,” Venka shrugs. “They’re gone. If I dwell on it, I’ll lose my mind.” Rin looks perturbed by this, like she can’t fathom not spending every second singing _your fault, your fault, alone and it’s your fault_ to herself. 

“I think… I will lose my mind if I keep on like this.” She looks fragile, for all that she’s a couple inches taller and definitely stockier than Venka. Venka has the absurd urge to wrap her arms around her and rock her to sleep, to keep her safe when she’s vulnerable. _This is how I can keep you safe_.

“You’ll be fine,” Venka says dismissively. “Okay? Now get to bed, you’ve just been up too long. You’ll be okay in the morning, you hear?” It’s an order. Rin nods and gathers her things up. Venka is leaning on her bow, waiting for Rin to pass. Rin can see the flare of shock when she stops in front of her instead of heading directly up and inside the bus.

“Don’t you dare get got too,” Rin says fiercely, clutching at Venka’s jacket with both hands.

“Whoa, watch the arrows—”

“Promise me that. Promise you won’t leave me alone for real.”

“I promise,” Venka whispers, searching for something she can’t understand in Rin’s face. It’s dark, and the shadows make her look emaciated, almost like the zombies they’re running from. There’s no hint of doubt in Rin’s eyes that Venka will break her promise. With her faith, Venka could almost be convinced she could ward off the effects of a bite just for Rin. 

Rin’s eyes bore into her, for any sign that Venka will break this vow. Venka rolls her eyes and uses one hand to tear off her Sinegardian pledge band, shoving it at the other girl.

“Here. I promise you won’t be alone. Now get your ass to bed.” Rin steps back, satisfied, winding the scrap of fabric around her own white one on her upper arm.

“Night, V. Scream if you need me.”

“I don’t need anyone,” Venka says quietly once Rin is inside and the doors are closed for sure. Then she sinks onto the ground and moans into her hands. It’s a long time until morning, and her head is spinning with thoughts that can only go nowhere.

-

They get their food from kitchen lines, like they have done for months. Millions of refugees stream across the continent, running from an ever-expanding cloud of undead. There are some people who managed to salvage instruments here, and they strike up a tune as Venka and Rin sit on provided tables and pretend they’re at a cafe.

“I think I learned to dance to this,” Venka says thoughtfully, cocking her head to the side. It’s so cute Rin has to ask:

“Teach me?” 

“No,” Venka says, but relents almost right away. “Okay. I’ll lead.” They stand up right there, shame long slain by the more pressing concern of the end of the world. 

Venka stiffly puts Rin’s hands on her shoulders and hovers her hands a little over Rin’s waist, afraid to touch her even through all her jackets. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Rin says, and then they’re almost on top of each other, and Venka is burning bright red. She hates that Rin is so much brown because she can’t tell if Rin is in the same state at all. Her feet stutter, and she has to cling to Rin, and when she looks up she’s smirking at her, so smug that Venka has to do something about it. She twirls Rin right into a dip, and then she’s the one smirking as her hands find purchase around her neck.

They sway for a while, focused on nothing at all, and the birds peck at their long-forgotten food.

-

Venka doesn’t “get got” at all. It’s Rin who stumbles over a familiar face, Rin who Venka wasn’t close enough to save, Rin whose final scream echoes in her ears late at night. Venka misses those photographs now, all gone with Rin except the one of just the two girls. She drives in silence in a bus that used to hold more than twenty people and sleeps only when she can’t stay awake anymore and mourns alone, all alone. She knows now what Rin had been carrying inside her, what she had seen when she looked at those photos. When Rin had been mourning, Venka had been able to take care of her, to push her own grief aside for her.

The zombies catch up to her, eventually, because they’re basically fucking unkillable and Venka is so very, very mortal. 

Rin had never seemed like she could die, she thinks grimly, her bow long gone so she clutches Rin’s old axe. She had so much vibrant life running through her, it seemed wrong that Rin was dead and gone and Venka, a wooden shell of a heartless bitch, is the only one who remembers her.

There’s one last one now, and Venka’s stomach turns as she sees its caved-in cheek and its empty eyes. They never stop being unsettling, no matter how many she beheads. Then she sees the familiar fabric wrapped over nearly-shredded, disgusting white tied tightly around its upper arm, and her heart takes a sharp nosedive to shatter into a million pieces in the pit of her stomach. She contemplates giving up, then, letting Rin bite her. She’s tired, and she was before Rin died, and she doesn’t think she can kill her again.

Still, she made a promise, so she aims carefully and she kisses the cleanest part of Rin’s moldering, gore-splattered face before she pours the last of her latest can of gas over the severed head and body and sets it aflame.

Later, Venka glances at the torn and crumpled photographs she’d pulled from next to Rin’s unbeating heart and puts them under her own shirt, on the left side of her chest. She stands up straight and brushes her hands off on her thighs, and wills her knees not to shake.

“Baby deer are stupid, and they get eaten first,” she reminds herself, just to hear a human voice, and then she keeps going, wondering if she could drive straight into the sunset.


	8. sorry, i was never good like you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> writer in the dark- canonverse character study. spoilers for both books. kinda heavy ngl. part one of two

You’re  _ nothing. _

You’re a war orphan who forced her way into one of the greatest institutions in the country. You had a funny accent and skin too dark even for rural taste, and in the capital it made you an instant outcast. You had too much fire for your own good and now you’ve burned yourself into the memory of everyone who’s ever met you.

You are the girl who sank her canines into the bloody, heaving carcass of private school and made it her bitch. You spat in prejudice’s face and dared it to make you a monster; anything they could lie about, you could do something infinitely worse. They called you a delinquent and you became a warrior. They told you your people were dogs and instead you leashed the gods. 

You are your own worst nightmare, and you can’t sleep for it, so you drug yourself again and again until it’s taken away from you. You are easily addicted; first to pain, then to praise; to Altan; to Nezha; to fire. Now, you feel yourself slipping again, your bleeding heart drawing a winding path to the last intoxicating presence you think you’ll ever be enamored by. 

You watch it pass through you in fascination. Even after being hit and broken and stabbed in the damn back, you trust unrelentingly in the goodness of the people you know. 

And Venka is, you think—  _ good _ . Nobody is good in this hellscape, not now, not anyone she knows, but she won’t control you. Maybe, now, you can really be free, because all she asks of you is that you don’t hurt her. She’s hurt others and she’s killed them and she’s full of so much anger you wonder if she could call a god herself, but she’s not you. Once, you smiled at her with bloody teeth and she shuddered away, but tonight, she comes to you with hands scraped raw and dripping with blood, her own and others. 

You watch her clean up and you watch from so far away because human touch startles her and sends her into a raging mood for the rest of the night. You’d lie down and let her tear into you if you thought it would help. Isn’t that what you do, sacrifice yourself for the people you love? Isn’t your pain a gift?

She doesn’t take it. Venka has no more use for you, honestly. You promised you would burn them and you did, and that was all she’d asked. Just for genocide. Well, you’d given it to her, and she’s still here, so every night you wait for her to be done with you, to declare that you’re worth nothing beyond your race and because of it. She’s never done with you. 

She disappears to change, because she’ll never let anyone see her naked again, she swears it. You understand. You stroke your healed arm gingerly as you wait for her to come back. A familiar touch runs up the scarring places. It stings, but pain has been your constant companion and almost a comfort. Venka pops back in, glowering. It’s a permanent fixture, but her expression now is somehow softer than usual. A friendly scowl, if you will.

Kitay’s trying to sleep now, probably. You never sleep unless you have to, and neither does Venka. You’re not sure how he does it. Then again, he’s stuck by you when he didn’t have to. You would be more concerned with his grand delusion of human decency in your rotten body if it didn’t mean he would leave you.

It takes a lot, now, for you to wrap your head around them staying. You would love them if they left, even, because what is your love if not all-consuming? Maybe you were built that way because you have been abandoned so many times. This is how you justify your own heartbreak in the mirror: why should you do anything if you do not pour your soul into it? You live so loud, burning so bright; to others, the screaming in your head is starting to sound a little like the noise outside it:  _ i am a soldier i am a commander i am alone please don’t prove that you can love a monster do not lower yourself o my gods do not lower yourself for my worthless sake. _

Yet, you don’t hate yourself. You are a peasant, but you are powerful; you are more than you ever should have been and the truth of your complex existence eludes you. 

Venka says you’ll find yourself. Venka finds the harsh simplicity in everything.

She’s not ambitious, not like you. She’ll do whatever it takes to get her revenge, but you think she’s satisfied with death. You want humiliation. You burned the innocents, you buried Feylen, and you’ll flay Daji to death with Nezha beside her in front of the people he loves that love her. You hate Tearza. You are Tearza. You will be better than her. You will avenge her and you will sit on the throne to rule a country that has, at every turn, fucked you over. 

The boat rocks beneath you. Venka’s hand is warm on the small of your back. 

You are nothing.


	9. hey, promise i can stay good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> still sane- venka canonverse character examination. tws for rape, forced prostitution, abortion, bad parenting, violence, and golyn niis. i tried my best to do her justice. i am SO SORRY i almost forgot to post today lmao. enjoy!

You are  _ trapped _ .

Your entire life has been an uphill struggle for freedom; yes, this is the hill you will die on; yes, this is the fight you will kill for. 

You are the heir of one of Sinegard’s oldest families; you were supposed to go to a capital school and marry your best friend and become your mother. Instead, you clawed your way into Sinegard and you crushed anyone who stood in your way, until the only ones who remained were your antecedent and the ridiculous object of his and your infatuation. 

Nezha hated Rin because she was worth less than he was. You hated Rin because she was worth less than you and because her success could mean your demise. You see the world in a colder light than stupid, privileged, idealist Nezha. If you fall behind, you will be snatched up by your father and you’re not sure you could escape the maws of marriage a second time.

You hate Rin because you cannot bring yourself to hate Nezha. You have never been first in anything and now you have been demoted to third, and you see the way he looks at her. It burns, the expression in Nezha’s gorgeous, misty eyes when he sees Rin, hate and something hotter in his gaze. You confine yourself within your own skin and wonder bitterly why you couldn’t see each other that way, instead, you and he. Instead, you see Rin, bright, steadfast, strong Fang Runin, and you can’t hate yourself so you hate her.

You are the heir of one of Sinegard’s oldest families and none of that matters because here, in Golyn Niis, your life is a living hell. You try to kill yourself, so many times, and all you ever get to is the baby. Your suffering is indescribable and yet condensed into so few emotionless words. You are trapped in this house with these men and even your body turns traitor and holds you down in it when all you want is to rise up, above the roof, and float away like cinders on the wind.

Your arms are broken, but somehow, your spirit is not.

Against all odds, you escape that hell house, and it begs the question: where do you go from here?

_ Burn them _ , you scream at Rin, and you can’t condemn her when she does. In fact, for it, Fang Runin becomes the only person you trust. Nezha— he doesn’t understand. He thinks too much like a big brother to let you go back out into the world that burned you, but, gods, you can’t let Rin shoulder the load alone. You want your share of blood.

Rin is a people person, even if she doesn’t see it. She loves too easy and too hard and you watch her run herself into the ground again and again until you start to care. She gives you a fraction of your freedom— your bow and a place to use it, and you will never forget it. It is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you.

She sees the way you look at babies, and she holds you back. The thought of Rin holding someone back should be funny to you, but it’s not. It’s miserable and there are a thousand cuts all over your body again that make you want to hurl someone else off a cliff. You have had no time to recover yourself. Golyn Niis was a thousand years ago and yesterday. She doesn’t let you kill innocents, the way you let her. She keeps you good.

Rin makes you feel valued like no one else has since Golyn Niis. You hate Nezha a little, now, for acting like you’re suddenly some delicate thing that has to be protected. You hate your parents a lot, for acting like you’re a thing. As though being a victim of the worst sort of violation is a wrongdoing on your part.

You are not an epic, like Rin, or a tragedy, like Nezha. You will be there when they are long gone, if not in body then in mind. Every day, Rin slips a little— you see it. You see it when Kitay pretends not to and when Nezha tries to fight it. She is power mad and burning so bright it hurts to look at her. You love her, you think, as much as your carcass of a body can. You love her from a distance, because you see how her heart cages her and you will not lead her around on a leash. You stay her soldier because your heart is a sharp, spiky thing, prone to exploding, and you deserve better than an intangible, nonphysical affair with history’s next tyrant. Still, she is the best person you have ever met.

Rin thinks with too many layers, in your opinion. The world is laid out in black and white before you. You trust yourself and the people you love and you hate your enemies. War is complex, Rin and Nezha say. But Venka is a soldier, and war is only difficult for the generals. All the soldiers have to do is kill until they die. Nobody is right anymore, nobody’s proud of the paths they chose. The chips are down, and you are just a woman and you have been hurt. You are a human and you will die on your feet with the dignity and rage they could not strip from you.

The boat rocks beneath you. You look at the fading stars above and the one in front of you. You vow to pay back what she has given to you.

You are trapped.


	10. how we kissed when we danced on the light-up floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> green light- mermaid au. this one literally made me want to give up hahahah forgive the drop in quality towards the end. no tws, pure crack

Fathoms below, noblewoman Sring Venka slaps her hands over her ears and screams. Yin Nezha frowns and puts down his horrible upperworld instrument.

“They call this art up there, you uncultured walrus.”

“If they call that art, I think they’re the uncultured ones,” Venka sniffs and turns to observe the rest of the grotto, flicking her deep-blue, almost black tail. “So you’re keeping this little human worship shrine for what reason?”

“It’s not a shrine,” Nezha sulks, darting from one side of the grotto to the other and then pausing by a slightly chipped statue of a human bitch, strapped to the ears with armor and weaponry and a murderous sneer on her face. Venka swam over and rapped it on the side of the head, unnerved by the statue. “I met a girl!”

“You what,” Venka says. There is no humor in her dead, shark-like eyes. She’s sure she knows what he’ll say, and she is prepared to kill her childhood best friend for it.

“I met a girl. A human one,” he clarifies, and she lunges for him.

“I gathered that, you crusty barnacle! What were you thinking, going so far up there? Are you a complete seaweed brain? You could have been killed!”

“Relax, little sister,” Nezha snipes, having danced neatly out of her clutch. “Don’t you wanna hear about her?”

“No.” Venka turns her nose up. She looks back at the monstrous statue. “...Okay, how did you even meet her? Did you really talk? Did she have all those weapons on her?” She gasps. “Did she teach you how to use them? Can you teach me?”

“I saved her from a shipwreck,” he admits. “And I don’t think she saw me. But she was  _ magnificent _ , Venka. It’s just, like… when you know, you know.”

“Oh,” Venka says, looking bemused. She has no idea what he’s saying. Know about what?

Two days later, she finds out.

“You let your son go see the Dragon?” She rages at Vaisra, not caring about social decorum. “You knew what he was going to do? You’re sea-swine— you’re less than that. You know what,  _ Yin Vaisra _ , you’re one son of a—”

“I knew because I told him to go. I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Vaisra says in his smooth baritone, the one Venka once admired but suddenly resents. “It had to be done, for his own good. He had to learn.”

“There are other ways to teach him!” She shrieks, her voice carrying down the hall. “He doesn’t know what he’s getting into. What if it kills him? Don’t you care about your son?” He gives her an odd look. 

“That passion will serve you well in court if you learn to hone it,” Vaisra says. “Nezha will be fine.”

“And if he’s not,” Venka grumbles under her breath as she swims toward the Dragon’s lair. “You have six other sons.”

“Let me get this straight,” the Dragon says. “You want to follow Yin Nezha to the human world?” Venka nods, flicking her tail impatiently. “So you understand, I must include some disclaimers—”

“Oh, did I forget to say? I don’t fucking care,” Venka growls. “Just give me a goddamn pair of human legs.”

“Alright,” the Dragon says, and it doesn’t have a face exactly, but she can tell it’s arching a brow. “You have a week.” There’s a contract that she scrawls her signature over hastily, a spell that the Dragon leads her in to chant over and over until it’s just her voice, throaty and hoarse, echoing off the walls of the cavern, and then there’s pain, splitting her open and drawing raw screams from her throat so pure she doesn’t notice that she’s not making noise. 

She wakes up on the shore that she’s never seen. Well. Maybe she’s followed Nezha up once or twice. But no more than ten times. The sun seems so much brighter from up here, and it’s warmer than she’s ever been. She’s still shivering, and she frowns, wrapping her arms around herself.

“You good?” Something big and dark blots out the sun, and Venka flails frantically and hits one Fang Runin directly in the eye with a mother-of-pearl handle comb.

It’s a beautiful day out, so Rin walks down to the beach to search for the ethereal face she’s  _ sure _ she saw when she almost drowned in that godawful shipwreck. For a fairly influential figure within a coastal kingdom, she really, really, really hates the ocean.

Her already expeditious pace quickens when she sees a suspiciously flesh-colored lump shifting on the sand. She dashes across the beach, hoping against hope that it’ll sit up and reveal the beautiful boy who has been haunting her dreams for days, and is met by a sight no less bewitching yet distinctly different. It’s a girl, she thinks, that lies in regal repose, the waves lapping at her bare feet. There are flashes of gold all over her, dripping over her slender neck and wrapped around her as bracelets from wrist to upper arm. Attached to her head is a spiky crown of coral and yet more gold, which reflects the sunlight to give her a watery halo, while seashells seem entangled in her locks. A loose, shift-like cream dress covers her and compliments the aureate tint to her skin. 

She knows exactly who she is, then.

Rin huffs a sigh of disappointment and moves closer to pick the limp, unconscious woman up. She pauses when her sharp features wrinkle and then settle out again, and then blinks her eyes open, sending her gaze spinning until it lands on Rin. No longer sure if she should touch the girl, who, now fully conscious, seems to have the worst case of resting bitch face Rin has ever seen, Rin extends a hand.

“You good?” Unlike the last one, she scrambles back, yanking out one of the shells holding up her elaborate hairdo and chucking it at Rin, hard. “Ow! What the fuck?”

The girl glares up at her, and Rin could swear she sees a spark of recognition flare. But it’s squashed as quickly as it appeared, and Rin’s eyes have suddenly been put out of reliable order, anyway.

“Kitay!” Rin bellows when she finally makes it up to the castle, shaky, confused, yet angry for no identifiable reason girl in tow. It took forever to get her across the beach strip alone, because she walked like she’d never done it before in her life. Now, the girl looks around the library, somehow still dripping water on the floor. Rin thinks it might be out of pure resentment for her belongings that she’s still wet. “I found your— whatever she is! And she’s cranky about it.” 

Kitay looks up from his latest book and blanches. 

“Yep,” he says faintly. “That is somebody I know. She sure is a noblewoman from my country. I also knew she was going to be here, on dry land, because I am a diplomat from there. Um, our kingdom is also on dry land, just to be clear. Venka, how are you?”

Venka makes what is apparently a very rude gesture in their culture, because Kitay gasps and grumbles that she didn’t have to react like that. 

“I’m lost,” Rin says. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

The girl turns to Rin, opens her mouth, and proceeds to begin a tirade that absolutely none of them can hear. As she gesticulates violently, Rin makes curious eye contact with Kitay, who seems to be deep in thought.

“You know what, Rin, I am so sorry,” he says, effectively cutting off the strange girl’s silent rant. “I was so happy to see her that I completely forgot formalities. Please allow me to introduce Her Grace, Sring Venka. She’s been mute her whole life—” Venka whips around to face Kitay, now— “And she’s quite, ah,  _ eccentric _ .”  _ Off the hinges _ , he mouths. Rin nods. This makes so much sense. From what she can tell, Her Grace is now making repeated slashing motions across her throat and then jabbing the same finger at Kitay, who seems completely unperturbed and almost amused. Rin arches an eyebrow.

Finally, Venka seems to give up on communicating whatever’s inside her pretty, deranged head, and sinks to the floor, her head in her hands, her jewelry clattering as she goes down.

“There, there,” Kitay says cheerfully. “Let’s get you a room, madwoman.”

Rin’s pretty sure the loud rush of air that streams from Venka’s mouth is her best attempt at a scream.

Once she’s alone with Kitay in what is a far cry from the caves she assumed humans lived in, Venka kicks the fancy, gilded door and then points a shaking finger at him. He holds up a hand, listening for something, and when he’s satisfied, dissolves into a fit of maniacal laughter. She crosses her arms and glares until his giggles come to a stop.

“Here, let me get you some paper,” he says. “Then you can tell me why you’re actually here.”

_ Where is Nezha _ , she scratches out in big, bold letters. 

“Nezha? He’s not here. I haven’t seen him since I left.”

Venka scrubs at her face with her hands.  _ He’s in love with her.  _ Kitay looks confused.  _ The human girl. _

“You can’t mean Rin.” 

_ The one talking to us _ .

“Oh. You do mean Rin.”

_ He has a statue and a shrine dedicated to her. Very creepy. _

“Yeah, she’s pretty popular up here, too. Fairytale warrior princess, and all that.” Venka squints at him suspiciously. 

_ What are you doing here? _

“I am a diplomat,” Kitay says. “They just don’t know that Sinegard isn’t actually just a faraway island kingdom.”

_ So where’s Nezha? _

“No clue. Maybe he got lost. Maybe some other human girl found him.”

_ Maybe the Dragon ate him. You said she’s popular up here, right? _

He nods. “Rin? Yeah, she sure is.”

_ So he’ll find his way here eventually. I have to stay. _

“Oh, good,” a smile spreads over his freckled face. “You need me to help you acclimate, so you can’t even kill me for what I did.”

_ You said I was crazy.  _

“You deserved it.” She drops her quill and shakes her head at him. “Sorry, I can’t hear you,” he sing-songs, walking out of the room. “Call if you need me!” 

Venka shucks off all her jewelry, hurling it in all directions, and flops down face-first on the ridiculous, puffy dry-lander bed.

She has a week.

The first day, Rin invites her down to dinner, where Venka flatly refuses to eat any of the seafood provided. They’re used to this with Kitay, so they give her a healthy helping of salad, which she devours with shockingly perfect table manners. When Rin looks curiously at her, Kitay makes an offhand comment about how it doesn’t take sanity to learn which fork goes with what food. Before Rin can disagree that learned table etiquette did nearly drive her out of her mind, Venka stabs a cherry tomato and miraculously manages to aim the squirt of juice directly onto Kitay’s white scholar’s smock.

Rin can’t contain her laughter and begins pelting Kitay with her own tomatoes in the spirit of goodwill.

The second day, Rin gives her a pad of paper,  _ careful, it’s expensive, _ and Venka trails her around the castle while Kitay follows  _ her _ . 

“You write strangely,” Rin notes. Venka looks at her quizzically and dashes a  _? _ down. She can still read it, can’t she?

“I do it like this.” And, instead of just demonstrating, like a normal person, Rin angles herself to fit against Venka’s body and wraps her hand around Venka’s own, rearranging the fingers. Venka feels abnormally hot, like she’s never felt before. She jerks away from Rin’s warm, soft body, and scribbles,  _ you’re the strange one _ . 

The third day, Venka asks her to take her into town. Rin, she assumes, thinks it’s just a whim of her mad mind. Kitay knows she’s looking for Nezha.

They traipse all over town, and Venka is introduced to new and exciting things like gunpowder, and maces, and all of Rin’s favorite things like that. Still, there’s no sign of Nezha, and they lose Kitay to a new bookseller’s shop somewhere along the way. Seeing her dejection, Rin leads her to a little, secluded lagoon. Venka manages to get herself conveniently lost, and sits, relishing the solitude and the cool sensation of fresh water on her feet.

“Hey,” Nezha pops up. Regrettably, Venka has no more combs to hit him with, so she settles for kicking him in the head. “Why are you up here?”

She’s dumbstruck for a second before reaching for her writing pad and spilling ink all over the page.  _ WHAT THE FUCK _ , she writes.  _ What the fuck are you doing? _

“Visiting you. I came back from studying with the Dragon and found out you’d left. Why’d you come up here?” She stares at him. 

“Venka?” Rin’s voice is panicked, and the noises of her crashing through brush get closer and closer. Nezha dips. “Oh, there you are,” she sighs. “Scared the shit out of me.” 

Venka turns on her best puppy eyes and looks up at Rin. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s go.”

The fourth day, Venka locks herself in her room and rubs her throat raw trying to make a sound. She’s so confused, and Nezha’s still in the water and she’s in an unfamiliar land with no purpose, and she hates herself for being so impulsive and stupid and, above all, hypocritical. She’d chased Nezha all the way here to protect him from a love he wasn’t in danger of indulging. Venka slaps herself, cursing herself for not knowing that platonic love could be just as blind, just as strong. 

When she finally emerges, long after dark, she’s not surprised to see Rin slouched against the wall opposite her door, sharpening a knife. 

“Hey,” she nods at her. Venka waves back, a fresh wave of disdain for her condition washing over her. “Need anything?” 

Venka mimes eating. A smile overtakes Rin’s face, and she leads her down into the empty kitchens. 

After a fulfilling meal of mostly sweets, Venka feels compelled to draw a line across her throat, following the action with finger loops around her head.

“You’re not crazy?” Rin asks, and Venka nods emphatically. “I knew.” She’s wearing an enigmatic half-smile. It’s not until Venka gets back up to the privacy of her room that she realizes the expression is somewhat mirrored on her own upturned lips. 

The fifth day, Rin finds out. There’s an unlocked door and a fight between Kitay and Venka and she walks in like she owns the place. Venka hasn’t been paying much attention to human politics, and she’s not quite sure if she actually does.

“—you’re a mermaid!” Kitay is saying when it happens. Venka tosses her head and points behind him at Rin, and they all stare at each other for a long, awkward moment.

“So, you’re a mermaid,” she says, and seats herself on the table they’re sitting at. Venka shakes her head frantically.

“No,” Kitay says. “Uh.”   


“I knew you were fishy, dude,” Rin says, nudging him in the chest with her foot. “Anyway, you’re not exactly the only people with unusual elemental connections here.” 

The burst of flame flickering off her pointer finger is bizarrely reassuring. 

The sixth day, Rin takes Venka back to the lagoon. 

There’s a little boat, and little floating lights that are also bugs, and mostly there’s Rin. She’s sweaty, which Venka thinks is kind of gross, and half-stripped because she’s rowing the tiny boat they’re sitting in, but every time she looks at her, Venka’s breath catches in her throat and she’s not sure why.

_ Show me? _ She writes on her little pad, which gets thinner by the day, and watches in fascination as Rin sends a trail of fire racing from one wrist over her shoulders to the other. She circles her finger in the air, and Rin makes a little laughing noise deep in her chest and obliges, repeating the trick over and over. Venka watches in fascination, straining her ears to understand the little voice in her head that’s hissing one phrase she can’t quite make out over and over again.

_ Kiss the girl. _

The seventh day, Venka says goodbye. She tries, unsuccessfully, to give Rin the majority of her jewelry, and resorts to stuffing it into her pillowcases when Rin refuses. She promises to visit Kitay, who has grown both a backbone since they were children and on her since she made whatever mistake led her up there. Rin drags her all over town, and Venka can’t help but be flattered that she’s putting in so much effort to make memories with her. It’s her honor to be remembered.

The eighth day, she waits, and she waits, but her feet never fuse together, her gills never come back, her home never opens back up to her. She walks back to the castle, her bare feet scraped raw, her eyes red but dry. Rin takes one look at her and opens her arms, sweeping her up and holding her close as she shudders out silent blasphemes.

The ninth day, the Dragon appears to her. This time, it looks like Vaisra, all fatherly concern and manipulative countenance.

“I can offer you a way out. It’s this, bipedal and mute, for the rest of your life, or kill the girl and come home. Come home, Venka,” it says. 

She tries to say  _ go to hell _ , but her voice is still gone, so she takes the knife. Her heart is heavy.

The tenth day, she kisses Rin. The other girl looks surprised but pleased when it happens, and Venka can feel her heart beating fast under her skin when she pulls her in a second time. She doesn't know what to do with the sudden, insistent sense that everything will be alright. 

The eleventh day, it happens again.

And again. 

And again.

The thirteenth day, the Dragon comes to collect. 

She makes the same rude gesture she’d signed at Kitay the first day she’d come out of the water.

“Insulting the most powerful being on this earth?” The Dragon says, slithering toward her. “Stupid little girl.”

“You’re not the most powerful being on this earth,” Rin says, twin ropes of fire wrapping around the Dragon and pulling him down. “I am.” 

Venka sheathes his own knife between his ribs.

There’s a burning sensation in her feet. The floor is swaying, or maybe it’s the walls. Rin is running toward her, but she can’t hear. Maybe she’s deaf and mute now. 

“That sucks,” Venka says, and collapses.

She flutters long eyelashes open, and the first thing she sees is a girl. It’s the same girl who has been haunting her dreams for days, bewitching even when she’s boringly, utterly human. The sunrise streams through her cropped dark hair and glints off her armor, giving her a red halo. There’s laughter in her eyes. She looks like a human and a god and a place Venka could call home. Venka reaches up to cup her cheek.

“Hey, Rin.”   
  



	11. red, orange, yellow flicker beat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> did i really have a choice of au for this song? yellow flicker beat- hunger games au. tws for sexual assault, implied past rape, lots of murder and gore and misery, suicidal ideation. i really don't think this is my best work considering that i have technically not read the books nor seen the movies (reading the middle book in fifth grade when i had nothing else to do at camp didn't provide any knowledge of what exactly happens in those books) but i do not hate it.

Rin only volunteered for Kesegi’s sake.

She hadn’t meant to, exactly. She’d tried to convince herself a million times that her little foster brother meant nothing to her, that he wasn’t a real brother. Still, it had been his very first Reaping, and before she’d even registered the news her hand had shot up.

“Rin,” her brother had grabbed her shirt as she’d started to push through the crowd.

“I have to go, Kesegi,” she said, pushing him off less gently than she should have. “I’ll be back, okay?”

With watering eyes and a wobbling lip, he nods. Rin goes.

Venka had volunteered for her own fucking peace of mind. 

They’d called Nezha first, and of course he stepped up with a grin and a smart salute. In line, Venka slouches, putting her weight on one hip and then the other.

Their Capitol representative opens his mouth to speak, but before he even finishes his first syllable, Venka is stepping forward.

“I volunteer,” she calls, her voice high and clear. She’s proud of her execution, of the way she plays off Nezha’s charming character. She keeps a blank expression and smirks at the crowd. When she leans forward and murmurs her name into the microphone, it drips with bloodlust.  _ I’m not playing to live _ , she promises.  _ I’m playing to win. _

“What are these?” Kitay, Rin’s stylist, asks her, stroking smooth hands over her forearms. 

“Burns,” she says shortly, and he nods. They’re not uncommon to have in her district. She wonders what hides behind his freckled face.

They wrap Rin in fire. Suddenly, she stops being who she was: a dirty, poor girl kicked around by life and becomes someone entirely new. Her partner is obsolete to her, just another person unfortunate enough to be born in her district.

Phoenixes rise wreathed in the same flame that scorched them, and she becomes something of a god in the ashes of the Capitol’s system. Rin tries not to think about the incineration she surely faces when her latest life cycle burns out.

Venka’s nothing more than Nezha’s shadow in the Capitol. She always has been, but by now she doesn’t give enough of a shit to show off. She is secure in her own, whole, personhood. She has her own past and her own plans.

“I have complete faith in Nezha,” she says in her interview. “These are his Games to win.” Venka is a truth teller. She’s always been blunt to a fault, and even if the smirk tugging at her lips implies something else to the audience, she means what she says.

Her stylist wants to make her Marigold to Nezha’s Midas, to make her very flesh drip gold.

“You won’t  _ actually _ be naked, Ms. Sring,” he says, skimming his hands over her body. “Although you more than have the form for it.”

“I need a new stylist,” she says calmly, dragging him into the hall by his ridiculously long hair. “This one’s broken.”

“What the fuck, Venka,” Nezha says, who appears to have just be going back into his room. There’s a heavy-looking gold crown perched lopsidedly on his head. “Did you kill him?”

She shakes her head absently, pursing her lips in irritation as nobody rushes forward immediately to collect the limp body.

“Kids just can’t take having their bones broken like they used to.”

Meeting her mentor is almost a bright spot for Rin in the miserable knowledge of the impending Hunger Games. Altan Trengsin is tall, dark, and handsome; charming and soothing to be around. Rin’s panic quiets around him, giving way to his commanding aura. 

Rin can see it, how he is a killer in every clean-cut line of his body, how perfectly assured he is in the usage of it. She knows exactly how he makes use of his hard-won grace. She’d watched him win his Games with wide eyes and a swelling heart. She almost feels like she has watched Altan Trengsin grow up, no matter how much younger she is than him.

She’s a little blind to the way each step lances him with pain, with the knowledge of what it took to get there. She’s a little blind to the fact that Altan Trengsin’s sharp edges are not those of a clean sword, but of a grimy, shattered window. He is indiscriminate in who he cuts.

They give her a week for a fighting chance. She hears the other tributes laugh at her when she cuts herself with throwing knives and can’t take down anyone else unless she fights dirty. She’s not competition to them. 

“Aren’t you the other volunteer?” The two Careers corner her when they’re the last three in the room. Rin wakes earlier and sleeps later, and Altan sneaks her in when the doors are long closed. She might be a little in love with him out of desperation. 

“Volunteers are stupid,” the boy says. She shoots him an irritated glance and continues wrapping her wrists.

“Can you fucking drop it, Nezha?” The girl rounds on him. “I’m here now and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t call you a dumbass,” Nezha snaps back. “That doesn’t mean I’m happy you’re here and that we’ll have to—” He stops suddenly, breathing heavily. Rin can’t help but be entranced by the rise and fall of his chest under his tight-fitting training clothes, the flush rising on his pale cheeks, the furious, almost teary sparkle in his narrowed eyes. The rush of air he lets out when the girl winds up and punches him so hard in the ribs that a cracking noise resounds. Rin is almost impressed by the display of needless violence.

“Not in front of the peasant,” she says.  _ Never mind _ , Rin thinks, and pushes past them in favor of sinking blades into dummies.

“You have to stop lecturing me, dude,” Venka says casually, even though her entire body is drawn tight with anger. “What did you expect? I’m as prepared as you are. It would be a fucking disgrace not to fight.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” he says, looking sad and so, so distant. He is a million miles away from her, on a planet where he could never understand the rotting turmoil of worms inside her.

“Don’t you dare pity me, Yin Nezha,” she turns away from him. “When you kill me, I’ll die with dignity.”

The night before the Games, Rin can’t sleep.

Bizarrely, her insomnia doesn’t stem from nerves. She can’t stop cycling the faces of the other tributes in her mind. They blur and separate, blur and separate, and she can hear their cackling in her head. She remembers fourteen year old Altan, his gut twisted into a knot and his eyes glinting with pure rage, still strong enough to pummel his opponents. In her mind’s eye, they stop looking like people.

_ Let the Hunger Games begin. _

Blood spills over the Cornucopia, over the sky as the sun sets, over Rin’s hands as she realizes that she’s kicked a boy straight into Nezha’s knife.

Some god must be watching over her, because the Capitol has decided she’s worthy of gifts: a flamethrower, the destruction incredible. 

She wakes up every day while it’s still dark and she settles in for short periods of rest after she scavenges the food from the people she kills. She lurks on the ground and she burns people while they sleep in trees. She doesn’t have time to metaphorically clean her hands, and a sick sort of satisfaction starts to settle over her when the cannons echo off the distant arena walls.

Venka isn’t surprised she’s still alive. She sticks with Nezha for now, and she’s happy for it. They get the best things, sent from heaven on parachutes, and for two teenagers trapped in a dystopian hell of a death coliseum, they feel like kings. 

Also, they killed every other member of the Career pack on day two.

She can put an arrow through someone’s eye from  _ this _ distance, and what she might lack in hand-to-hand skill Nezha more than makes up for. They watch each other’s backs, and they affirm that promise every night, lying on their backs and watching the fireworks shatter light across what passes for sky, their pinkies interlocked like the children they should have been.

She’s sure the Capitol is eating  _ that  _ shit right up.

They get the jump on Rin. Venka is clutching her precious flamethrower, holding it over a smooth-running creek of coveted clean water, while Nezha sweet-talks the peasant.

“Massacres change a person,” he’s grinning at her, and both girls side-eye him and then each other.

Rin tries to stab him. He catches her wrist and pulls her into him with all the ease of an actor in a drama. 

She knees him hard in the groin for it.

“Sure. I’ll just kill you while you sleep.”

“I’ll kill you now,” Venka only starts to say. Rin’s eyes are fearless and there’s a spark that sends her back ten feet when their fingers brush as Venka hands her back her flamethrower.

So begins an alliance.

“Watch the vines,” Venka says lazily as they make their way through the forest. Rin jerks back, centimeters away from touching the poisonous green foliage that had almost strangled Venka days ago and left bruises that still ache all over her body. 

Rin cuts down a mutt that lunges at her, getting bitten in the process.

Nezha, forever an insistent leader, does a good job of it, for all their ribbing. Still, he has the relentless and destructive tendency to go first; to make a sacrifice of himself. 

“You’ve known each other for a while?” Rin asks, her pride worn down for a little tenderness. Something that isn’t the hard, hot crucible of the Games.

“Forever,” Venka says quietly, if not softly.

“Did you plan this? To win together?” She shoots her a scornful look over the fire.

“There’s no winning the Games together.”

“You could.”

“We couldn’t,” she says flatly. “Anyway, it’d be torture to live after this.”

“So you’ll just let him win?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

Half an hour passes in silence.

“It would suck to leave the arena together because we’ve really been milking our relationship.” Is Venka's passing attempt at peacemaking.

“You’re in a relationship?” Venka shakes her head almost imperceptibly. “Oh.” They both jolt as Nezha appears next to them, two freshly dead squirrels in his hands and an ever-hopeful expression on his face.

“I’m—” and Venka limps her wrist subtly. Rin looks at her face, confused. She sighs, bringing her right hand up with her fingers spread in a V shape to her lower face.

“Oh,” Rin says for the second time that night. “So you’re  _ really _ not… Um, and me too. Sort of.”

“I love her, but I couldn’t like Venka,” Nezha shares in Venka’s sudden, flustered silence. He catches on quickly. Or maybe he was listening. Rin hopes not, her cheeks heating at the thought. Her pulse pounds in her temple and she wonders if she’s been poisoned.

She also feels a little offended that someone could get to look at Venka for years and years on end and hear her sharp protectiveness and not like her.

A trust grows between them, a bond over shared love that Nezha can’t breach despite his Nezha-ness. That’s good, because he does his goddamned best.

He goes for Rin first, poor, blind, trusting Rin. And why should she trust him? She would have done the same someday, maybe, if she’d had the chance. She likes to live in the moment.

So she leans in for a kiss and finds a knife in her back. Distantly, she thinks back to the first time they had killed someone together, the beginning of this ghastly round. Her fists are clenched as she falls into the river.

Venka watches, and then he comes for her. She’s trained for this her entire life, first to win and then to help him win, and it should be easier than anything to die in the Hunger Games. Every time she closes her eyes, he’s a little closer, and she can see Rin’s mouth fill with blood and helplessness.

He gives her the dignity of a chase, a few more precious hours of life. When Nezha does catch up to her, her mind is made up. Venka does what she’d never expected to do.

She fights back.

In the end, Yin Nezha is a coward, fleeing with marks from first her arrows, used like daggers, then her fingernails, once polished and now worn ragged, then her teeth, tasting victory even as she falls to the ground.

She wakes up and he may as well be a million miles away for all that he is not there, leaving her for dead, face in the dirt, arms broken in two and three places by the hard bed of the canyon Nezha kick her into.

She does what she has to do for the fucking game, and she lifts her head and she crawls.

Venka crawls and she crawls and she crawls until she reaches a little overhang, a place that feels safe even if it isn’t. She can’t sleep, the ache in her split bones too much to let her slip out of consciousness, but she’s well aware that she’s barely present and in no shape to fight whoever might stumble across her.

She hallucinates, her mind melting and sifting her vision through unreality. She thinks she sees her mother, her cousins. She reaches out to Rin, but her hand passes through air. She’s barely alive enough to realize what the number of shots she hears mean. 

“Then there were three,” she murmurs, and she doesn’t believe in higher powers but prays her sacrifice was not in vain.

Rin is certain that she’s only alive because someone above is watching over her, because she died, she’s sure she did. Somehow, she’s still cold, and then she realizes that she’s washed up on the shore of the creek. Weakly, she tries to bat away the vines wrapped around her legs, pulling her inexorably back into the water.

Her mouth opens in an attempt at screaming, but she only succeeds in coughing up slimy globules of blood and muddy water. 

“You’re fine,” Venka says, and steps down on her legs again, probably causing Rin serious damage but effectively sending the tendrils of flora back into the creek. Once the sharp pain in her shins settles down to a dull ache, she scoots back and looks up at Venka, noticing that one of her arms is shabbily splinted and the other remains bent at an unnatural angle. It’s been days, she notes.

“Thanks,” she mouths, but her throat is still raw. “Why?”

Venka looks uncomfortable and brushes her off, turning to disappear back into the brush. Rin wraps a weak hand around her ankle. 

She stays, and she doesn’t ask why.

“I don’t have any ointment,” Venka frowns later, running her less-injured hand over Rin’s back.

“So we’ll kill him before the infection sets in.”

They only have a couple of days together, a scant few hours filled with fear and disgust and hatred. There are scuffles, but they’re almost too tired to kill each other. Venka and Rin cling to each other like they’re all each other has left. This is the first step, like the grocery list Venka might leave on Rin’s kitchen table in another life.

  1. Kill Nezha.
  2. Kill you.
  3. ??? Even if you win, you never really leave the arena.



In the end, it’s really the Capitol that gets them. The arena pushes them to hate Nezha when they don’t have to, lights the flame of vengeance in a heart that wasn’t meant to hate and in one that hates everything.

Nezha burns, his corpse raised high on a pyre they didn't build. Venka watches, dusts her hands off on her torn pants, her vision blurry from exhaustion and eyes stinging from the smoke. She has hated a lot of things in her life, but never has she hated the Capitol with this much vigor. It’s burning her, from the inside out, or maybe it’s the poison she’s sure is coursing through her veins. She wonders blearily if Rin is in any better shape.

It’s just them, now. 

“I’ll kill you tomorrow,” Venka say, and falls asleep on a flat rock, her skin warmed by the artificial sun.

When she wakes up, there’s a space by her side that is unfamiliar. Rin is hunched in the fetal position, screaming, clutching her leg, and Venka moves without thinking.

“Where’s the sting,” she says, just before Rin rolls her over and pins her to the ground.

“You sure you don’t want to leave here with me?” She asks.

“I told you,” Venka’s voice is steady, dignified ‘til the end. “There’s no leaving the Capitol. Get it over with. I don’t like messes.”

“God, Venka,” Rin says, and there are hot, burning tears sliding down her face, puffy and purple from the Games’ abuse. “Would it kill you to crack your shell open?”

“I mean, it will,” Venka says, struggling beneath her. When Rin, as skinny she’s gotten, keeps her weighted down, she stills. “Fine. If I must, I just want to say,” she coughs spastically. “ _ Fuck  _ the Capitol. And I love you, you freak.”

Rin doesn’t know what to do with that, so she presses down on Venka’s windpipe harder.

“I don’t want to kill you,” she says, her voice shaking. She doesn’t know anything but killing anymore. 

“I came here to die,” Venka says, her hands finding purchase in the dirt. “Does it matter who it’s for?”

A thousand scenes flash between them; Kesegi, Nezha, chariots, training, bloodbath, Nezha, mutts, flamethrower, pain, Nezha. A campfire. Something soft and fleshy and  _ living _ in the dark.

Rin makes her choice.


	12. now i'm letting you know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> million dollar bills- uh. no warnings just some angst to fluff also sorry i keep forgetting to update as i write these lol

“I think we should break up.” It’s a normal day when Venka says it, looking down at her phone. It's a normal day: the sun is streaming through the curtains of their shared home, the birds are chirping obnoxiously, and _Venka wants to break up_. Her voice is dead serious, and Rin can’t see the mirth in her eyes. Her heart drops.

“You- you do? What are you saying?”

“I said I think we should break up. It’s not working anymore,” Venka gives her an odd look, and Rin can’t decipher it, not now, when her heart is cracking and her mind is muddled by panic. 

Now that she thinks of it, Venka is sitting next to her on the couch, not draped over her like usual, not touching her at all. Instinctively, she moves to touch her, to touch her cheek or her shoulder or her leg, because she’s pulled to Venka gravitationally, because Venka is her sun and she’s never wanted anything more than she wants to be burned by her. She comes within a hair’s breadth of her and then rears back. Venka doesn’t want her to touch her anymore. Venka doesn’t want her anymore.

“What did I do?” She asks, and it comes out so much stronger than she feels. “Please, baby, no, fuck. I can- I don’t want to hurt you. Please let me make it better, I can make it better.”

Venka’s eyes widen, and she drops her phone, straightens her back.

“Rin, baby, shit-”

“Do you not love me anymore, Venka? Shit, that’s- that’s okay, that’s okay, I’m sorry.” She’s a wreck, apologies spinning uselessly in her mind. “I should’ve known, we’re not good- I wasn’t good enough-”   


“Runin!” Venka swings her leg over Rin and then she’s in her lap, and there are tears gathering in the corners of Rin’s eyes. Venka sweeps her thumbs over her face, pushing away the saltwater, feeling her girlfriend’s (now-ex’s?) cheekbones beneath her soft skin. Rin is still talking, staring up at her with so much desperation and love and longing in her eyes, and Venka’s own heart cracks a little under the weight of her stare. 

“-the happiest I’ve ever been, ever, you’ll find someone else who makes you so happy. Or not, you’re so-”

“Rin!” Venka bonks their foreheads together. “Pay attention to me.”

“Venka,” Rin says, her jaw working. “You don’t have to say anything, I’ll go-” 

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Venka kisses her. Rin surges forward, pulls her in, the final pieces of her heart shattering. She kisses her back, hard, desperate, like it’s the last time she’ll ever taste true love.

Venka pulls back, panting, her hands on both sides of Rin’s face, squishing her cheeks slightly.

“I was joking.”

“You were- you were what?” And, oh, there’s hope in Rin’s eyes, so much it hurts.

“I was joking,” Venka repeats. “Being sarcastic. I didn’t realize I sounded serious. I would never break up with you, baby, what brought this on?”

“You have a horrible deadpan,” Rin tells her. “Get off of me, you just gave me a heart attack.”

Venka doesn’t move and a satisfied smile curls on Rin’s lips.

“You do love me, though, right?” She asks, dipping her head and resting her cheek against Venka’s chest. Venka’s hands keep rubbing her back, passing through her hair- soothing.

“Yes, Rin. More than anything or anyone. You’re everything, my whole world. I left it for you, remember?”

“I remember,” Rin says, and pulls her in tighter. 


	13. and in my head the visions never stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> supercut- today i offer you more pain. tws for death, illness, a tiny bit of graphic description. kind of spoils it but uhh hanahaki disease basically

Venka is  _ pissed _ . What’s new?

She lifts her head and presses her lips together, frowning at the taste lingering on her tongue. She waits a few more seconds, and surely enough, another wave of nausea rolls through her, and she starts coughing again.

She hates being sick. She’d always been a healthy child, had never gotten so much as a cold until she’d come to Sinegard.

She blames Rin.

Okay, it’s not quite Rin’s fault, as much as she wishes it were. She’d probably joked about it, horrible child that she was, insinuated with sly eyes and pithy remarks that the shopgirl from Tikany would give them all some animal flu. This illness, it’s all her. It’s come from nobody but her own traitorous body. 

In classes, she’s more outspoken than before, picks fights with even Nezha, who asks what’s gotten into her and receives no answer. In her rare moments of forgetfulness, of peace, when things feel so close to normal like she can’t feel thorns pricking at her conscience and her heart, she holds onto it with both hands and burns the memory into her brain. It never lasts long, and her memory is getting more and more faulty.

Still, she can’t help remembering most of the time, and she hurls curses at Kitay in her head. His particular brand of eternal is so heavenly compared to the hell she’s living in her head; she thinks he’s blessed to absorb information and to never love anyone like this. She remembers only her love, only her stupid fucking heart that can’t find it in itself to beat regularly anymore. 

She can’t forget because he keeps reminding her.  _ Rin this, Rin that, did you see Rin’s form today? Did you see that Rin’s ahead of me in three classes? _ She wants to scream at Nezha, to tell him to shut up about the school legend, to say that she sees  _ everything _ , but instead she grasps with greedy hands at every mention of the girl. She doesn’t trust herself to interact with her directly, not now, so she hides behind Nezha and hates herself for it.

She hates him, too, because she can see it, in the way he talks about her, in the way she spars with him physically and verbally. He’s not heartsick, not like her.

She sits through every class they have together and she watches them work together and everyone thinks it’s about Nezha. It’s never been about Nezha for her. She sits through every class and she daydreams and then she runs to the girl’s room and coughs up lungful after lungful of flowers.

They’re fucking poppies, of course. The goddamn plague on their country and now on her. Little crimson petals that grew into near bouquets, and they get paler and paler every time she leans over the toilet and hacks up whole flowers and stems with leaves. Instead, they’re sprayed with blood and they’re beautiful.

Sometimes, she thinks about an old story, the kind with a happy ending. The story is comical and romantic at the same time, but mostly, it’s about how soulmates can taste each other’s food. Venka wonders if Rin can taste the lifeblood on her tongue, because Rin has to be her soulmate, even if she’s not Rin’s.

If not her, it’s no one. Venka only accepts the best, and as much as she hates it, that's Rin for her. It’s always Rin.

She knows she’s dying. She probably should have gone to a higher-up a long time ago, but first she had thought she could fight it with sheer willpower and then she hadn’t wanted to let go, not yet. She only has a little bit of time left at Sinegard, anyway. There are more important things looming on their horizon.

The medic does cluck at her when she finally goes in, tells her what she’s known all along: two choices, forget or die. Venka scoffs. Would she have told anyone if she was planning to kill herself over a girl?

The war starts. They go their separate ways. Venka finds more important things, like she knew she would. 

The war ends. Venka’s in Arlong and miserable and trapped when she meets her again. She doesn’t recognize the girl, with her dark skin and burning eyes, but looking at her feels like freedom. It feels like fuel to the raging fire. 

Against her will, Venka stands and walks over to her and to her old childhood friend.

There’s a vague sense of anamnesis about her, their slates not only wiped clean but replaced with two completely new slates. Two people who never really knew each other at all. 

The girl wipes off her right hand on her thigh and sticks it out for Venka to shake. Venka glances at Nezha, sees the stars in his eyes, and realizes that she does know this girl, if only from long hours of listening to him describe the war hero lovingly.

“Fang Runin. Have we met before?”


	14. buy back the secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> don't take the money- filthy capitalist au. reminder that i do not condone the act of being rich. tw for mild discussion of prostitution and reference to rape (what happened to venka) and also assassination. sorry to all almost thirty year olds for the terrible representation

Rin hates events like these.

She rolls her eyes and props her feet up on Kitay’s lap, not minding his hiss at her stiletto stabbing his thigh through his dress pants. 

“Dude,” he hisses.

“Shh,” she says, taking a gulp of champagne. “We’re supposed to be classy right now.  _ Dude _ is not classy.”

“And drinking your champagne like you’re taking shots isn’t, either.” She rolls her eyes and slumps further, digging her heels farther into the flesh of his legs.

“I hate this. I have work I could be doing right now.”

“Networking  _ is  _ work, Rin.”

“Yeah, but I suck at it,” she mumbles, knowing full well she’s being obstinate and childish. Kitay’s job is actually much less involved in networking and more in numbers than Rin’s is, but he loyally attends every gala and charity event she does so she doesn’t knock down a chandelier and set some foreign businessman on fire again. Not that that ever happened. The press has been paid well to keep it out of their scandal pages.

“Yeah,” he says, and Kitay’s beautiful crooked grin is a relief, a shield from the claustrophobic aura of the high ceilings and the weird modern art ice sculptures and bright, irritating camera flashes.

The corners of Rin’s mouth lift for a second.

“No, I don’t understand,” a new voice pops Rin’s little bubble of peace. “What is the point of attending so many Hesperian religious events when we’re obviously not Hesperian or part of their f— sorry, yeah, their church?”

The speaker is obscured by an obnoxiously ostentatious flower arrangement at the center of the table, but Rin’s inclined to like her. 

“She sounds classy,” Rin mouths to Kitay. “I like.”

“I get that Mrs. Yin is a big philanthropist through the church, or whatever, but that doesn’t explain why you go, or why you  _ flaked  _ on me.” Rin raises her eyebrows and smirks at Kitay, who, for some reason, looks like he’s suddenly contracted a mild case of food poisoning. The speaker continues: “No, I know you’re bedridden or whatever, I was there, I called the helicopter. Now excuse me, I have to pretend I’m friendly with all these cheese-eating fakers because my boss broke his leg snowboarding like a  _ pussy bitch _ .” The sound of acrylic nails hanging up on the hapless snowboarder is like music to Rin’s ears.

This woman is  _ so  _ her type. Rin’s face splits into a grin.

“Hi,” she says, leaning around the overfilled vase, adjusting her suit jacket. “I’m Fang Runin,” she extends a hand, only to freeze in abject horror when she sees the speaker. 

The willful lack of savoir faire, the boss-bitch attitude, the nerve to speak about a  _ Yin _ that way— it all clicks at exactly the wrong moment.

“Hi, Fang Runin,” Sring Venka says drily, shaking Rin’s hand with a disturbingly cold hand. “I think we’ve met.”

“Kitay has to go,” Rin says, standing up abruptly. “And so do I. We’re synced. Isn’t that funny? So-nice-catching-up-haha-bye!”

She hauls Kitay bodily out of his seat (“Hey,” he complains, “my wine!”) and clears a path to the washroom, her grip on his wrist like a vice. 

“This is a disaster,” she says, grabbing both his shoulders and shaking him. “Kitay, what am I going to do?”

“Probably apologize to the vice president of our biggest rival company?”

“That’s not comforting, dude.”

“It wasn't supposed to be! It was supposed to scare you into apologizing to one of the activists you want to endorse you.”

“That didn’t help either.”

“You told the woman named most influential lesbian of the year that you and I are synced,” Kitay moans. “Forget helping you, how will I recover?”

“Shut up, you’re not understanding me. When did she get so hot?”

Kitay blinks.

“Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”

“I’m going back to the table.”

“No, don’t leave me.” She grabs his sleeve frantically. “Why? Why does everyone I know betray me? You, Altan, Venka because her voice isn’t like nails on a chalkboard anymore, every man from the house of Yin ever, my hamster in college—”

“That was ten years ago, and I need a drink.”

“Boo, you whore,” she complains.

“I’m not the CEO of a company that is arguably more successful than their old guard, inherited, collapsing shipwreck as well as a politician who is a strong contender for Yin senior’s spot next election who’s having a breakdown because her college ex’s best friend is mean to rich men now instead of to you and for whatever reason you’re into that, but alright, I’m the whore.”

“Nezha and I never technically dated,” Rin sulks. 

“I know too many details about your relationship already. Please, do not share any more.”

“So… you would rather I overshared about Venka and I?”

“I guess. If it makes you stop acting like she’s totally out of your league. Maybe.” Rin whoops and hugs him. “If you must.”

“You are the worst best friend ever.” He flicks her forehead. “Okay, fine, I’m lying, you’re the best, I love you.”

“Excuse me,” someone she barely recognizes— one of the Hesperian politicians, maybe, probably, hopefully, interrupts awkwardly, pushing through to actually reach the washroom. Rin smiles widely at him as she steps aside and prays he doesn’t speak Nikara. 

“Seriously,” Kitay says, just before they reach their table. “You have no reason to be so worried.”

He does not like the spark that lights in Rin’s eyes.

Venka looks up just as they return, clicking off her phone, the screen of which reads:

_ VenkaSring: Would it be breaking bro code if I flirt with your ex _

_ NEZHA: Which one _

_ VenkaSring: You’re such a dick _

_ NEZHA: Thanks it’s big _

_ VenkaSring: Never mind I’m gonna say hi to Rin just to spite you _

_ NEZHA: Rin? Like Fang Runin? Like Sinegard Rin? Like first love Rin?  _

_ VenkaSring: Like the girl whose heart you broke Rin _

_ NEZHA: I was 18 leave me alone _

_ VenkaSring: So _

_ VenkaSring: Bro code violation or not _

_ NEZHA: It’s been almost a decade and she’s her own person it’s chill _

_ VenkaSring: I see and appreciate the WomenRespecting  _

_ VenkaSring: + Thanks bro _

_ NEZHA: Thanks for asking bro _

_ VenkaSring: Bro _

_ NEZHA: Bro _

_ VenkaSring: BRO _

_ NEZHA: Bro??? _

_ VenkaSring: She’s wearing a suit _

_ NEZHA: Aren’t you also wearing a suit _

_ VenkaSring: Yeah but I look like a businesswoman she looks like a god _

_ VenkaSring: I mean I know I look like a really good businesswoman but _

_ NEZHA: Fang Runin _

_ VenkaSring: You get it _

_ NEZHA: So tell me what happened _

_ VenkaSring: She told me she’s synced with Kitay and then she picked him up and ran away _

_ NEZHA: I think that’s a good sign _

_ VenkaSring: Really? I didn’t get it _

_ NEZHA: I’m lying I don’t know what the fuck that means _

_ VenkaSring: LOL _

_ VenkaSring: I don’t know if it’s more weird or useful that you’re her ex _

_ NEZHA: Not her ex _

_ NEZHA: And it’s weird _

_ NEZHA: Definitely weird _

_ NEZHA: Did she mention me _

_ NEZHA: Venka _

_ NEZHA: V _

_ NEZHA: ? _

_ NEZHA: Nah I’m kidding I’m over it _

_ NEZHA: But lmk if she did _

Venka clears her throat and aims her best smile at Rin. In the name of business relations. She wants Rin to  like not hate her for business relations.

“So, best lesbian of the year?” Rin asks, sliding into the seat next to her.

_ Okay. _

“It was most influential,” Kitay pipes up. Rin’s face heats slightly and she’s thankful that it won’t show. 

“Sure. Congratulations, Ms. Sring. I had no idea there was such a competition.”

“It’s Venka,” laughs the other woman. “We didn’t fight every day in Modern Political Thought to speak so formally.”

“But wasn’t the graceful exit I made when faced with my second or third most important class rival just so classy and, um, classy?”

“Second or third place? Damn, I suppose I deserve that.”

“You do,” Rin says simply, knocking her knee into Venka’s. Venka smiles, the barest hint of self-consciousness coloring her pale cheeks.

Kitay abandons them to engage in a cross-philosophical discussion and shouting match, his parting words to Rin being “Tell him that Poe’s orangutan was symbolic of—” before he’s swallowed by the gaping maw of academic discourse.

“A fine soldier lost in the line of battle,” Rin murmurs. “Sometimes I think I can still hear his voice.”

“Cheers to that, motherfucker,” Venka says, very loudly in comparison. 

“When did you get so fun?” Rin asks. “Last I remember, you were the one snitching to the RA about underaged drinking in the dorms and getting angry when I used ‘coarse language’ in academic debates?”

“Probably around the same time I got disowned and became my dad’s political enemy,” Venka muses. 

“Shit,” Rin says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Venka says, and it sounds like a threat. “It might have been the million dollars I raised for women’s shelters immediately after, anyway.” And some part of Rin, the one who didn’t grow up rich or connected like her compatriots, is still taken aback by the number before she remembers that she has millions on millions, that the world is her oyster and business her pearl. She raises her mental boot and crushes the soft little girl from Tikany for what must be the millionth time.

“You’re strong,” she says.

“Normally I hate it when people say that,” Venka says frankly. “But— I don’t know. I think you mean it.”

“I do,” Rin says, holding steady eye contact with her. “Tell me if I make you uncomfortable, though.”

“I can handle myself,” Venka says shortly.

“I know. Say, I know a guy—” Rin starts. 

“Taken care of,” Venka says, a soft smile playing on her lips and a hard look in her eyes. She inclines her head, unsurprised at this admission. This world is so different from Tikany; still, her mind calls back to Auntie Fang, to smuggling and struggle.

“Remember when you tried to break my knees in Jun’s class?”

“Ugh, Jun, what an old bastard,” Venka says, glancing at Rin’s legs. 

“Having a good night, ladies?” Another blatantly unimportant doughy Hesperian side character in this fic that was supposed to be 600 words and is edging in at 1.5k drops in to further the plot.

“No,” Venka says, “and fuck you, go away.” He nods and leaves, but in a racist way, because I hate the Hesperians. 

“Do you not like these events?” Rin asks, even though she knows the answer.

“I despise them,” Venka says in her poshest voice, quirking her lips because she knows that Rin knows. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“And go where?” Rin asks, belatedly wary.

“God, anywhere that’s not boring,” Venka replies, and if the slow roll of the syllables doesn’t convince Rin, the pearly shine of her teeth does.

Venka drives a motorcycle. She switches out her suit jacket for leather and her tasteful jewelry for chains at coat check and Rin reaffirms that _yeah, Venka is her type_.

Dancing with Rin, Venka learns that night, is like swimming. First, her hands on her waist and her face so close, she had felt suffocated, panicky. She’d leapt out of the water with her toes barely wet, run away in the name of safety. But the water is so  _ beautiful _ , and the slow roll of the waves, the soft rhythm of Rin’s movements lure her back in, and now, when the water closes over her head, she shakes her hair back and opens her eyes. 

“Do you want to get dinner sometime?” she asks, her voice low despite the empty room they’re waltzing in. Rin smiles at her, and her lungs burn. Rin kicks off her heels, and she loosens her tie, and when the dawn comes, they’re still dancing.

“The world is our oyster,” Rin whispers, and with her whole starving soul, she believes it.


	15. not alone in anything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tbg spoilers ahead!  
> ladder song- between venka's * and rin's *, rin mourns. also, she's kind of insane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this at 1 am so i apologize in advance for the inevitable mistakes. i intended for this to go in a different direction than it did so i might do something similar soon. this made me so sad i immediately wrote a super fluffy oneshot to cheer myself up so that'll be up shortly

The Empress meditates.

She sits in a dark room, little balls of fire flickering in a ring around her still form. She, ever obsessive, ever addictive, can’t be without it, but she sees the shadows beneath Kitay’s eyes in the mornings after and if she can’t give it up for herself, she can give it up for him. She loves to sacrifice things for him. If she is the new god of the Nikara, he is one of hers. 

He doesn’t speak to her very often anymore, but she likes to pretend that if she gives away enough meaningless gestures, things will be as they were before.

She lights candles instead of striking the sharp flint of anger and ambition to spark the flame, and she grows to love the ritual. What pain has she not taken pride in? 

She crosses her legs, aligns her spine, closes her eyes. She slows her own heartbeat, as she did, so many years ago, when she was a speck upon the earth starving in a cave at the whim of a madman. Today, she is the most powerful one woman military force in the world, gorged on the labor of her love. Today, the people whisper, the Empress is mad.

The notion of today has become something she hates beyond measure. She lives eternally in the space of yesterday, only dragging herself out for the fight of tomorrow. Today has not existed for her for a very, very long time.

When the Empress meditates, all of her confusion and anxiety slides from her like water sloughing off skin. She spirals up, up, into the clouds, to the Pantheon, to the home of her most beloved and hated gods. 

She never finds what she wants there.

She comes down from the heavens with a disappointed slump to her shoulders, and there, in the moments between divinity and death, the high and the crash, the exhale and inhale of hot incensed air, she realizes that she’s not alone. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Venka lilts, her hands landing on Rin’s shoulders, and she turns to see her, ash smeared along her temples and a smile on her face, and Rin feels the weight of worlds lift off of her bent back.

“I missed you,” she rushes out, spinning to face her. “You wouldn’t believe what happened at breakfast with some of the Warlords the other day—”

“Slow down, slow down,” Venka laughs, pressing rough fingers to Rin’s still-moving lips. “It’s been a long journey. I’m tired,” she mock whines, and Rin laughs.

“Then stay a little longer. I’m hardly the one sending you out anymore.”

“There’s just so much to do,” the cadence of her voice is teasing. Venka’s faith is commendable. She is determined to put entire countries back together, and she believes she will do it.

“The war’s over,” Rin says, and nudges her. “You won it.”

“Don’t tell anyone; they all think you’re some kind of legend, the end of the Trifecta’s flawed era.”

“How can I not sing your praises,” Rin means it. “You should stick around to make sure I don’t blab.”

“I’m not rooted,” Venka says. “I can’t stay here for too long.”

“I know,” Rin sighs, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep trying.”

“So it does,” Venka says, and she suddenly looks so old, weathered and grimy. Rin still thinks that she’s beautiful, the most beguiling goddess she’s yet come across, but she hates to see her like this. Jaded. Fading. 

Her eyes dip from Venka’s face for a split second.

“Venka,” she says, suddenly feeling sick. “I have to tell you—”

“Have you seen Nezha recently?” Venka says, her eyes alight with a freakish vigor.

“No,” Rin starts, closing her eyes. When she opens them, the other woman is leaning closer, and she can’t bring herself to lean away from the stench that clings to her, fresh off the battlefield, wildflower in the massacre, always  _ fighting _ Venka. “No, it’s been— it’s too soon.”

“Did he tell you?” Venka asks quizzically, her pitchy voice too loud for Rin’s aching ears. “Did he tell you, Rin? That I didn’t do it?”

Rin shakes her head, her skin brushing the skin of Venka’s face, she’s so close. Her skin isn’t soft. It feels cold, hard, like a body in rigor mortis. 

“Why?” Venka speaks when Rin can’t, when the shaman once full of conviction stumbles over her sentences, seeking a reason, seeking a lie. “Why would you hurt me? I thought you knew me, I thought you could be better. I would’ve died for you. I did die for you. Why didn’t you trust me?”

“I thought,” Rin croaks, tears making their way freely down her face. “I thought you loved him more than you loved me.”

Maybe he is a metaphor. It doesn’t matter to her anymore.

“I loved you,” Venka says, holding Rin’s face, her hands like ice, immovable, freezing. Rin can’t move. She nuzzles into the touch. “I love you.”

“I’m sorry,” Rin chokes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

“Why did you kill me?” Venka reaches down, takes Rin’s hand in her own, presses it to the bolt in her neck, to the fresh blood that flows each time Rin meets this vision. Rin curls into her, trying to press herself to the body, the remnant of her general growing more incorporeal with each shattering second.

When she touches her back, Venka flinches, and new waves of guilt flood over her. She did this. It was her fault, all her own. This is the last tragedy of her own doing, the last death at her hands, and yet, when she looks in the mirror now, she sees only the corpse of a little Speerly girl.

Venka fades, and Rin is alone again.

The Empress mourns. 


	16. blood orange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ladder song- technically not attached to a song, but since i wrote it because of the last chapter, i put it here as a sequel of sorts (even though they're not related at all). just soft fluffy domestic goodness. MAJOR CREDS TO @highrunin ON TWITTER for the headcanons that inspired this!!! thank you!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, i wrote this after 1 am and did not edit it, so i'm sorry if i spell flour flower. here's my onion soup recipe from one dish kitchen. it's very good i promise
> 
> ▢ 3 tablespoons salted butter  
> ▢ 1 small yellow onion , halved lengthwise, then thinly sliced  
> ▢ 1 clove garlic , chopped  
> ▢ 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme  
> ▢ 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt  
> ▢ 1/8 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper  
> ▢ 1/4 cup red wine  
> ▢ 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour  
> ▢ 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth  
> ▢ 1 thick slice French bread  
> ▢ 1/4 cup shredded Gruyere cheese
> 
> Melt the butter in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes.  
> Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated, about 5 minutes.  
> Sprinkle the flour over the onions and stir. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the flour doesn't burn.  
> Stir in the chicken broth and bring the soup back to a simmer, cook for 10 minutes.  
> Taste and add additional salt, if necessary.  
> Heat the broiler. Place the slice of French bread on a baking sheet. Sprinkle the Gruyere cheese over the top and broil until bubbly and golden brown, 3-4 minutes.  
> Place the bread in a soup bowl and pour the soup over the top.

“Can you sautée the onions?” Rin asks, and Venka moans, unwinding herself from around her girlfriend’s waist. 

“If I have to.” 

“Yes,” Rin says, staring at the cheese she’s grating. Venka’s pout drops to a displeased frown. “Yes, you have to.”

“Boo,” Venka sulks, stalking over to the stove, where she resentfully pushes around the alliums, flicking up the heat. 

It’s so sudden that Rin can  _ hear _ the gas flooding to the flame, and she jerks upright, dropping the block of gruyere and rushing to Venka’s side, turning the knob to dial down the heat.

“We’ve been over this,” she says, exasperated, and Venka turns to her with a sunny expression and winds her arms around her neck. 

“So we have,” she says unrepentantly. “But it makes no sense. Hotter equals cook faster.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Rin says fondly, turning the knob down further and half swinging Venka steps away from the stove.

“Yes, it does,” Venka insists, and splutters when she’s met with a faceful of flour. “Oh, you little shit.”

Rin does, in fact, offer her another shit-eating grin and reaches into the flour bag a second time, her hand brushing Venka’s as she does the same.

Venka gets it all over her shirt, and Rin crushes a fistful over her glossy black head of hair, earning her an offended gasp and a glare from beneath floury eyelashes. 

“Ha, got you,” she snorts, clouds of white powder rising around them. “Hey, what are you—”

“You got something on your shirt,” Venka says slyly, poking Rin’s chest. 

“That’s not gonna work,” Rin laughs. “How stupid do you think I am?” 

She is pretty stupid, apparently, because instead of finding her own face well floured, Venka lays a kiss on her right there, and although it’s only a short peck, Rin pulls her in immediately for a second, deeper one. They stumble back a step or two, Rin’s hands finding purchase on the kitchen table, while Venka’s fists clutch her shirt. They break apart, giggling, and stare at each other, trying to brush off the excess ingredient. 

“You taste like flour,” Rin says.

“I’m never kissing you again,” Venka says, and then amends, “until after you’ve cleaned this all up.”

“That’s so long,” Rin moans. “We still have like an hour left before soup, much less cleaning.”

“Sucks to suck,” Venka grins, and then gasps. “The soup!”

She narrowly saves the onions from burning, grateful for Rin’s earlier insight in lowering the heat. As soon as she confirms that they haven’t been fully blackened, she tugs Rin (who had simply been staring at her girlfriend, admiring, as she worked) back to her, wrapping her arms around her waist. 

Still attached at the hip, they finish the soup, flouring the onions and boiling the wine off. Rin takes a quick sip from the bottle, which Venka protests. When she sets the bottle down, Venka detaches to pour herself a glass, and Rin steals the last dregs of. They mold together perfectly, long hours of practice letting them move as a unit, one hand stirring the soup as the other blows on a spoonful, tasting from the same wooden ladle.

They’re halfway through their second whirl around the kitchen when Venka realizes that they’re no longer cooking, they’re waltzing.

“There’s not even music playing, you sap,” she accuses, still keeping time with Rin’s feet. “Stop trying to seduce me.”

“What, you don’t feel romanced?” Rin grins. “Even a little?” She kisses her forehead, and Venka melts.

“Maybe a little,” she says lowly, and they stay like that for a while, wrapped up in each other’s embrace. There’s little to no real rhythm, and more than one toe is trod on, but there’s laughter, and love, more than either of them thought they’d ever experience. 

They’re not soft, not quite, but they’re made comfortable like this, in their own home, with their own warmth lighting the way.

Venka looks down at Rin, and she wants to tease her, to say  _ I won’t let you distract me again. Let me go, I have to broil the soup.  _ Instead, she looks at her, and there’s fluorescence shining off her hair and dark circles under her eyes and laugh lines creasing her face, and the words die in her throat. Instead, she steers them to the oven, pushes the pot in with one hand, keeps the other on Rin’s waist at all times. When she looks at her girlfriend again, Rin is looking at her with such unbearable tenderness she can’t help but lean into her, press their lips together, and a sense of peace washes over her.

Every day, she’s amazed by the depth of calm that Rin brings her, the serenity chaos at her side brings.

“Beloved,” she murmurs, and Rin arches an eyebrow, ready to pull the moon if she asks. “Can you slice the bread?”

Rin does, begrudgingly, as Venka goes to the bathroom. As she’s walking down the hall, she hears a  _ thud _ and then she’s running, sliding into the kitchen as Rin winces and shows her the blood dripping down her finger with a sheepish expression.

“Oops.”

Rin sits on the bathroom sink, Venka standing between her legs as she clucks and mutters over the injury.

“It’s not that bad,” she offers, and Venka’s expression in response is so vicious that Rin’s surprised she doesn’t develop more cuts from the force of her glare. “Geez, okay.”

Venka winds the bandage with singleminded precision, securing it slightly too tight and pressing a kiss to the injured appendage when it’s done. Rin leans down and murmurs a quiet “thank you,”, and they stay like that, eyes closed and foreheads pressed together.

Until the fire alarm goes off.

They both break away, looking at each other in alarm when the showers come on, splashing them both as the oven greets them with angry beeping.

“Oh, shit,” Rin groans.

“Again?”

They run out of the apartment, their clothes sticking to their skin, their hair quickly soaked, laughing all the while.

_ Yeah, _ Venka thinks soggily,  _ I could get used to this. _


End file.
